My Second Chance
Introducing our new Level Ground Co-Director, Dr. Tamisha A. Tyler!
Level Ground is overjoyed to announce Dr. Tamisha A. Tyler as our new Co-Director!
Tamisha has been a Level Ground artist and advisor since the organization’s inception in 2013 and has served on our Board for the last three years. She was raised in Long Beach, makes the meanest mac & cheese you’ll ever try, and is a Butler scholar, a Sagittarius, and an Enneagram 4.
We designed a rigorous and deeply intentional hiring process that was one of the most successful undertakings of shared leadership within Level Ground’s history. We’ll be sharing more reflections on our process next month, but in short, 16 members of our community joined a transition committee to determine our review criteria, score all 38 applications we received, and complete 2 rounds of interviews. After meeting several wonderful candidates, Tamisha was unanimously recommended for the role.
Tamisha not only brings a rich understanding of Level Ground and its structures and vision, but over a decade of other relevant non-profit leadership experience. Below, Tamisha reflects on her unexpected journey to this role, with a beautiful and fitting encouragement for the new year that second chances are worth taking.
If you had told me six months ago that I would start 2026 as Co-Director of an arts organization, I would have laughed and told you there was no way that was going to happen. Not because I didn’t want it to, but because it had already happened, and I had no interest in failing again. Let me back up about 10 years or so.
It was the Summer of 2016. I’d just applied for a PhD program. I had no job and no backup if I wasn’t accepted, so I entered a leadership cohort to explore the idea of starting an arts nonprofit, which in my heart of hearts was my dream job. I was an artist who wanted to create something to support and resource the artist’s life – financially, mentally, creatively, spiritually, and more.
By the end of that cohort, two things were true: I did want to start a non-profit, and I was accepted into the doctoral program. I began my PhD journey with the hopes of starting an arts non-profit after I graduated.
In the Fall of 2017, I was introduced to an organization that felt very similar to the one I had wanted to start. With no desire to reinvent the wheel, I joined the organization and a couple years later was asked to serve as Co-Director. I was well on my way toward finishing my degree, and I’d already found my way into the very career I had wanted to cultivate for myself.
I was on cloud nine. Everything was working out. Fast forward a few more years though to the height of the pandemic. I was writing my dissertation and had become the sole Director of this other organization. For many reasons entirely out of my control (which I will not get into here), I had to make the very painful decision to step away and the organization ultimately ceased operations. I was devastated. I’d finally had my dream job, and it didn’t work out. It failed. I failed.
So instead of working full-time in the arts, I finished my degree and began a postdoctoral fellowship teaching in the area of my research in Theopoetics. I learned (and am still learning) a great deal in my teaching career; discovering a gift for course development and innovating public education. I designed courses in Afrofuturism, taught worldbuildling through Dungeons and Dragons, and explored religion in the literary world of Octavia Butler.
I stayed connected to arts organizations by offering leadership coaching around failure and grief. In 2023, I was nominated and then invited to join the Level Ground Board. I locked in and accepted that even though academia wasn’t my original plan, I was making it work, and I was grateful.
When the time came for Level Ground to journey through its first significant leadership transition, I jumped right in. Not into applying for the position, but to help with the transition as a Board member. When the idea came up of applying for the position myself, I thought “Been there, done that, and got the scars of failure to match. Thank you very much.”
But, see, that’s the funny thing about community; they have a way of seeing right through you and demanding that you become your best self, regardless of how you feel about it. My friends and family heard my “No!” saw the fear behind it, and offered a “Why don’t you talk to your therapist about it?” to which my therapist added, “Why are you counting yourself out before you even try?”
How could I encourage others to take risks when I wasn’t willing to face my own failure? No, strike that. I had faced the failure, but I was unwilling to face the lingering desire: I did actually want to try again. Applying for the Level Ground Co-Director position was one of the scariest and hardest things I did in 2025 (and that’s saying a lot). I could face teaching hard topics and speaking in front of hundreds of people, but I couldn’t face the risk of trying again for my dream.
“But, see, that’s the funny thing about community; they have a way of seeing right through you and demanding that you become your best self, regardless of how you feel about it.”
The most healing part of my journey into the Level Ground Co-Director role wasn’t getting the job, but the process itself. And process is something Level Ground does best. Members from every aspect of the community formed a committee to create a rigorous and honorable process to find the right person, regardless of previous relationships. I joined dozens of other exceptionally qualified applicants in applying for the role, and had the opportunity to speak about the experiences I felt made me the best fit for the position.
In doing so, I had to go back to my moment of failure – not to critique it, but to remember the work that I was proud of. That’s what they don’t tell you about failure. It hurts not because it didn’t work, but because at some points it did. My accomplishments as a leader are not limited to the jobs or awards I have received; they are also evident in the work itself, regardless of the outcome. Presenting and speaking on my prior work gave me closure, and reminded me that I deserve to try again.
I share this part of my story to remind myself (and maybe you too) that second chances are worth taking. I step into the Level Ground Co-Director role with the humility and practicality that my previous failures taught me. But I also walk into it with new hope and resolve.
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I am so honored and grateful to watch your growth through this from set back to set up! To see you present your past experience in such a healed way was by definition Poetic Justice!
It has been such a joy to watch Dr. Tyler's leadership flourish in so many spaces over the years, including with Level Ground, and I am absolutely delighted for her and for the org that this new chapter is unfurling. Congratulations, y'all!