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Note: Deborah Simmerman, editor of this website, is retiring after 32 academic years. The website will be silent this summer. The Art Education Office will be closed in June and July.
Congratulations to the recent graduates and happy summer to all in the Art Education community.
Art Education senior Meghan Robbins was honored today at the State House as one of the “29 Who Shine.” 29 stellar graduates of the 29 Massachusetts community colleges, state universities, and UMass campuses were chosen for the honor.
Meghan ‘s work as a student leader, artist, activist, and educator was recognized. Among many other things, Meghan created a community project to help save the Parker Hill branch of the Boston Public Library when it was rumored that it might be closed. She and others in the community staged “a participatory art intervention,” interviewing local residents about their desire to keep the library open and then transcribing their comments onto bookmarks, where were placed in countless books in the library.
The 29 students honored today were in turn able to invite a faculty mentor to the ceremony for recognition. Meghan chose Adriana Katzew, who has inspired her to continue her passion for community arts education.
Congratulations to Meghan and Adriana.
Rsvp: djstankowski@massart.edu
Lois Hetland and Saul Nava of the Liberal Arts Department will be leading MassArt’s new travel course to India, called India Now: Contemporary Art, Craft, Ecology, and Culture. This course can be taken either as a studio elective in Art Education or for Liberal Arts math/science credit, and the deadline to apply is April 1st. In the fall semester the class will meet Thursdays 7:00-9:00 pm; then the trip to Bangalore and the Andaman Islands will take place January 2-19, 2015.
Students can expect to make art in response to their experience in India; observe and carry out service work in community learning centers for impoverished students, where art propels the curriculum; and use art to investigate a tropical archipelago with a unique ecology. The course facilitates exploration of the aesthetics, ecology, educational innovations, and contradictions of India’s culture-in-rapid-transition. It is hosted by Srishti College of Art, Design, and Technology–one of the few Indian art colleges based on the indigenous instead of the colonial model of art education imported from Britain.
