Art Education Continuum: Building a Pipeline to Foster Future Educators and Strengthen our Field

Art Education Continuum: Building a Pipeline to Foster Future Educators and Strengthen our Field

View the February 9 recording here.

Download the accompanying handout here

Each role in the visual arts education ecosystem plays a critical part in the overall success of the field. Join us for this conversation as guests engage in dialogue from their unique perspectives: High School Art Student, Preservice Art Educator, Classroom Practitioner, and Higher Education Scholar. We’ll explore what is needed to grow and sustain a healthy pipeline for the next generation of visual arts educators as well how we might best work together to strategically position art education looking forward. Member-generated questions will guide our discussion as we work toward solutions and support.

Complete information on all NAEA Town Hall Conversations is available here.

Panelists

Jasmine Floyd
Preservice Art Educator/Student
Miami University, Oxford, OH

Jasmine Floyd is a senior at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She is an art education major with a co-major in art therapy, minoring in ceramics. Floyd is in multiple organizations on her university’s campus, including the Division of Student Life DEI Action Team Communications Subcommittee, the NAEA student chapter, and Black Women Empowered. She is also a part of the College of Creative Arts DE&I Committee, where she was the cochair of the Academic Excellence Subcommittee. Her plan for life after graduating this spring is to attend graduate school for art education and obtain her master’s degree.

Thom Knab
NAEA President and Visual Arts Educator
Dodge Elementary School, East Amherst, NY

Thom Knab has been an elementary visual arts educator for 32 years—31 years at his current school. He has hosted over 40 student teachers from SUNY Buffalo State College and Daemen College. He is a past president of NYSATA. He has served as the NAEA Elementary Division Director and NAEA President-Elect, and he is currently NAEA President. He was honored as the NAEA National Elementary Art Educator and Eastern Region Elementary Art Educator in 2018. He was also the NYSATA Art Educator of the Year in 2018. He has been published in SchoolArts on topics including assessment, professional development, and advocacy. Knab has established an almost 1,000 sq. ft. art gallery at his school called the Brick Room Art Gallery (BRAG). He has been a keynote speaker at many state and regional conferences and has even presented in Beijing, China. He is a 2020 inductee into the National Teachers Hall of Fame.

Jorge Lucero
Associate Professor and Chair of Art Education
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL

Jorge Lucero is an artist born, raised, and educated in Chicago. He currently serves as chair and associate professor of art education at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Lucero’s books include Mere and Easy: Collage as a Critical Practice in Pedagogy, Teacher as Artist-in-Residence: The Most Radical Form of Expression to Ever Exist, and the forthcoming What Happens at the Intersection of Conceptual Art and Teaching? He is the author of numerous peer-reviewed articles and chapters in books. Lucero has exhibited, performed, and taught all over the United States and abroad. He holds degrees from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Penn State. He is coeditor of Visual Arts Research and sits on the editorial boards for the Journal of Social Theory in Art Education, the Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education, and the Journal of Curriculum & Pedagogy.

Nemisa Samanthapudi
Student
Spring Valley High School, Columbia, SC

Hi! My name is Nemisa Samanthapudi and I’m a senior at Spring Valley High School. I plan on majoring in industrial engineering in college. In fact, my career interest was strongly shaped by my passion for art and creativity. Art is my escape route for expressing myself and engaging with others. Art, to me, is limitless and what I appreciate the most is that there is never a right or wrong way of expression behind it. In the future, I hope to inspire others to find the value of art and encourage others to work toward their dreams and goals, which is something that I personally value.