Education

Nikki LeVee, BA ’25, Brings Artistry to Colorado

"My support system at AU's Baker School of Education was instrumental throughout the transition," she says.

Nikki LeVee completed her bachelor’s degree in 2025, double-majoring in secondary education and sociology. While completing her coursework, she also spent three years working on a National Science Foundation research project with the associate dean.

She now teaches drawing and painting to students in grades nine through twelve at Green Mountain High School in Lakewood, Colorado. She is also nearing completion of a master's degree in Learning, Developmental, and Family Sciences at the University of Colorado Denver and directs a high school dance team at Streetside Dance Studio in Boulder.

Choosing Teaching

LeVee, who has roots just north of Chicago, said teaching "felt like the most authentic and meaningful career path for me." She is drawn to students as adolescents "navigating the world around them and figuring out who they are." Even with the chaos of a classroom, she says, "I still can't imagine myself in another career."

Research in the Classroom

At AU, LeVee assisted Associate Dean Carolyn Parker on a National Science Foundation–funded research project on problem-based learning. Its lessons still guide her teaching. "One of the central ideas I took away from that research was the importance of helping students build self-efficacy and recognize how they can apply what they learn in the classroom to the world around them," LeVee said.

The project focused on environmental studies classes, but LeVee sees its findings reaching further. Many students felt they couldn't "do science," she explains, and the same is true in the arts. "I try to support all of my students in finding their inner artists and creativity, even if they don't believe it exists." The experience also shaped her philosophy of education, reinforcing her belief that learning should be "meaningful, relevant, and connected to the world beyond the classroom."

Parker watched LeVee grow during their three years working on the project together. "When Nikki first started working with me, she was a self-starter who demonstrated initiative, curiosity, and a genuine willingness to take on new challenges," Parker says.

With her sociology coursework, LeVee often considered research questions through both a sociological and a pedagogical lens. "She was not content simply to complete an assigned task; she wanted to understand the larger questions we were investigating and why they mattered," said Parker, who saw her become "a more confident, thoughtful, and independent researcher who could make meaningful contributions to a research team."

Nikki LeVee, BA '25, at the Flatirons Mountain in Colorado

A New Start in Colorado

After graduating, LeVee wanted to "build a life somewhere new, where I didn't already know anyone." Colorado kept drawing her attention, and an AU friend from Boulder helped: LeVee stayed with her for a week the summer before her senior year to see if she could imagine herself living there.

Her Colorado teaching license includes endorsements in both secondary social studies and visual arts, an idea that began during her time student teaching. Some of her favorite moments, she realized, involved "challenging students to think creatively about the social sciences." Baker faculty and mentors offered advice and served as references. "My support system at AU's Baker School of Education was instrumental throughout the transition," she says.

While at AU, she found community through the student dance club AU in Motion, where she became the artistic director and choreographer. She knew she wanted to find a similar community in Colorado when she moved there. At Streetside Dance Studio, she took classes, got to know the owner and other teachers, and was soon invited to direct one of the studio's top high school dance teams. "I often find that what I learn and develop as an educator in one setting makes me better in the other," she says.

One thing LeVee carries from Baker is "a commitment to equity in education," which she hopes to keep centering "in my teaching, my relationships with students, and my everyday professional practices."

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