MassArtEd.org

Deborah is back from vacation, and the Art Education office is open for the rest of the summer.

Congratulations to all our recent graduates who will be starting new teaching jobs in the next few weeks.

Kristen Mills (MSAE 2006), who has been an adjunct faculty member in Art Education for four years, has been admitted into the MFA program in Painting at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia.  This is a two-year program that includes a study-abroad component. Kristen will spend the first year of the program in Rome!

She will be finishing up at MassArt at the end of June and moving to Rome in August. 

Kristen has made a tremendously energetic contribution to the department  in teaching Portfolio, Creating Community, and Concepts and Processes for Classrooms; coordinating Art Jump Off; and managing the Arnheim Gallery.  Most recently, she curated a show including many Art Education students at gallery 406, Midway Studios for the Fort Point Open Studios.

We will really miss her!  We wish her great success in her MFA program and in all her exciting projects and plans in the future.  

PAGE: Publicly Active Graduate Education
Seventh Annual PAGE Summit
Speaking Within and Beyond the Academy

 ***CALL FOR GRADUATE STUDENT AND EARLY-CAREER FELLOWS***

Imagine America Conference
Thursday, September 23 – Saturday, September 25, 2010
Seattle, Washington

As public scholarship has grown as a viable form of knowledge-making within higher education
over the past decade, many graduate students and early career scholars have sharpened the
practical and theoretical tools with which they approach their own engaged teaching and research
agendas. At the same time, the exciting possibilities offered by linking scholarly rigor with civic
commitment increasingly attracts both new and established scholars to the field.

Across such a broad spectrum of experience and knowledge, the questions and concerns of
publicly active scholars range from the basic to the complex: What is publicly active scholarship?
How does scholarship activate civic engagement, and vice versa? When theory and practice unite
in community-based projects led by graduate students and new faculty, what are the
implications—for graduate and early-career scholars, for the communities involved, and for
academic professionalization? What are the implications for those making the leap in to the
professoriate? Have the artifacts of scholarship recognized within the academy expanded? How
does one write for the broad publics that engaged scholarship addresses? What disciplinary and
institutional obstacles do graduate students and untenured faculty continue to push against as they
pursue engaged scholarship?

PAGE invites graduate students and early-career scholars with a demonstrated interest in public
scholarship to apply for new and returning PAGE Fellowships in order to attend the 2010
Imagining America national conference in Seattle, Washington, 23-25 September. New fellows
will receive $500 and returning fellows will receive $300 to attend the conference, and will have
their conference registration fees waived. They will: attend the day-long, PAGE Summit on
September 23rd, where they will be given ample time to discuss and receive feedback on their
own emerging or established praxis; attend the general conference sessions; have an opportunity
for individual mentorship with leaders in the field of public cultural practice; and be invited to
participate in the conference’s poster session.

Graduate students at all stages of their MA/MFA/PhD programs, as well as early-career scholars
within two years of graduation are eligible to be PAGE Fellows. Cognizant of the diverse needs,
experiences, and interests of our applicant pool, PAGE encourages applicants to specify their
history in public scholarship, and some of the broad or specific issues and questions that they
would be interesting in exploring as PAGE Fellows. Note: Only students who are affiliated with
Imagining America member institutions are eligible for this award. A list of member institutions,
and more information about Imagining America, can be found at: www.imaginingamerica.org

To apply, send a 1-2 page letter of interest and a 1-2 page CV by Monday, May 3rd, 2010, to:
Robin Goettel, Assistant Director, Imagining America, Syracuse University. Applications must be
sent electronically ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ). General questions should be directed to PAGE director,
Kevin Bott ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ).

March 30, 2010

Art Education advising and majors registration will take place in South 109 according to the following schedule:

 9:00 -  10:00   Rising seniors and super seniors

10:00 - 11:00   Rising juniors

11:00 - 12:00   Rising sophomores

You do not need an appointment. Just come at the appointed hour.

Trintje Jansen, who has been teaching and supervising student teachers in the Art Education Department for over twenty-five years, was chosen by May Chau (BFA 2007) as the subject of a paper she wrote for a graduate course at Boston University in the fall 2009 semester, entitled "Trintje Jansen - My Inspiration and My Teacher-Hero".  May writes that Trintje was "a pivotal force and influence on my decision to change my career path from sales to art education."  

When May first enrolled in Trintje's Continuing Education course Drawing for the First Time, she was making a transition from a ten-year career in sales and marketing to what she hoped would be a career in the arts.  Drawing for the First Time is a course for those who have little or no drawing experience.  May found Trintje's course "unlike any art class I [had] ever taken" in the way Trintje fostered open-ended discovery.  As a result of the course, May decided to apply to MassArt, as other Drawing for the First Time students have done, and she majored in Art Education, ultimately being supervised by Trintje in her student teaching placement in Cambridge. May is now teaching at Somerville High School.

Many of us have had teachers who are heroes to us, and it is nice that in this case the student acknowledged it.

Dean Nimmer (Professor Emeritus, 2D Fine Arts) has been chosen for the 2010 Distinguished Teacher of Art Award by the College Art Association.  The award will be presented at the CAA conference in February.

In his "retirement," Dean is working on his second book, Making Abstract Art, teaching at Holyoke Community College, and teaching elementary art at Curtis Blake Day School!  He's an inspiration to us all.

The Art Education Office will be closed until January 7, 2010 while Deborah is on vacation.
Eleanor is available via email for students and faculty using MassArtEd and the new courseware.