The Art Box - Episode 25 - Meet Doug Herbert

Doug Herbert served both the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the U.S. Department of Education (ED) as an arts education program director and special assistant in his 30-year federal career.

Between 1987 and 2004, Doug directed the NEA's Arts Education grants and technical assistance programs, initially as the assistant director and then as director for 12 years. There he initiated several interagency partnerships with the Department of Education in order to create nationwide surveys of the conditions of arts in schools. Doug also led federal efforts at the NEA to put the arts into the National Assessment of Educational Progress, widely known as The Nation's Report Card.

At ED, Doug was a special assistant to former Secretary Rod Paige and then to several assistant deputy secretaries of innovation and improvement until his retirement at the end of 2017. At ED, he continued to foster or manage federal partnerships to assess arts achievement and determine the state of arts education.

The Arts Education Partnership, which Doug was instrumental in creating in 1994, continues to serve as the nation's clearinghouse for arts education and brings together more than 100 arts, education, governance, and philanthropic organizations to advance arts education for all American students.

Between 1980 and '86, Doug was director of the Very Special Arts Festival Program of VSA, an educational affiliate of The Kennedy Center. During this time, he fell in love with the Southwest, particularly Arizona and New Mexico.

His career in arts and arts education administration began as the first managing director of The Publick Playhouse, a community performing arts center in the Maryland suburbs of the D.C. metro area. 

A graduate of the University of Maryland in 1972, Doug found his calling "behind the curtain" in community theatre following college and chose publicity and producing over acting and directing.