Author of the acclaimed biographical memoir, Another Way Home: The Tangled Roots of Race in One Chicago Family (University of Chicago Press 2004), Ronne Hartfield is a poet, essayist, and international museum consultant. She served throughout the 1990s as the Women’s Board Endowed Executive Director for Museum Education at the Art Institute of Chicago and has been a Senior Fellow in Residence at the Rockefeller Scholars Center in Bellagio, Italy as well as at the Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions. With undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Chicago in History, Theology, and Literature, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters by DePaul University. Ronne has been a visiting professor and trustee at several universities, and has been honored with a range of awards and travel fellowships. She consults widely and is an internationally recognized expert in museum education.
From 1981-1991 Ronne was the Executive Director of Urban Gateways, which at the time was the largest arts education non-profit in the country. Under Ronne’s leadership, Urban Gateways won the coveted Presidential Medal for the Arts, as well as the Governor’s Award for the most outstanding arts organization in Illinois.