United States Society for Education Through Art (USSEA) Interest Group Column: Feb/Mar 2022

The columns for this issue of NAEA News were written prior to the 2022 National Convention. As such, you may find information about Convention sessions and references to past occurrences in the future tense.

In anticipation of the 2022 NAEA Convention in New York City, I am hopeful to see many of you in person. Please attend our meetings and presentations to get to know us and learn why the work of our members is important to the field of art education:

USSEA Executive Board Meeting
Thursday, March 3, 2022: 12 pm–12:50 pm
Sheraton/Chelsea/Lower Level
USSEA Board members will discuss policies and procedures for operations, share Chair reports for our past accomplishments, and plan future goals. Members and nonmembers are welcome.

USSEA Award Announcements and Celebration
Friday, March 4, 2022: 11 am–11:50 am
Hilton/Concourse B/Lower Level
Join us for the USSEA Awards Ceremony to honor and applaud the recipients of USSEA awards: National and International Edwin Ziegfeld Awards, Marantz Fellow Award, Service Award, Award for Excellence in PK–12 Education, and Outstanding Graduate Thesis/Dissertation.

USSEA Business Meeting
Saturday, March 5, 2022: 11 am–11:50 am
Sheraton/Chelsea/Lower Level
USSEA members and prospective members are welcome to discuss USSEA interests and initiatives.

Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education (JCRAE) Updates

Before sharing some updates about our Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education, on behalf of USSEA, I want to extend much gratitude to our past editor, Joni Boyd Acuff, for increasing our journal’s reputation and maintaining a high level of scholarship.

Our new coeditors, Amanda Alexander and Cala Coats, have been working diligently to recruit a new editorial board and manage our next publication, Rethinking Ritual Ecologies.

Amanda Alexander is an associate professor and area coordinator of art education as well as assistant chair in the Art & Art History Department at the University of Texas at Arlington. Alexander teaches undergraduate courses, works as the liaison between the Art & Art History Department and the College of Education, guides independent studies, and sits on MFA committees for graduate students in the department. Alexander’s research explores (inter)national and local community-based arts research and learning, sustainable social and culture development, and social justice. Alexander’s community-based research incorporates participatory action research, service learning, and autoethnography, and is grounded in critical theories. She uses these methodologies and theories to connect with international and local sites of cultural and artistic (re)production, including schools, museums, and community arts organizations, as well as teaches art education students how to become more civically engaged individuals, see art as a means to make meaning, and have an interdisciplinary, global perspective. Living, working, and conducting research in Peru with native artists, she has presented and published work in journals such as Studies in Art Education, Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education, Journal of Social Theory in Art Education, Art Education, International Journal of Education Through Art, and Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement.

Cala Coats is assistant professor of art education at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on intersections of ethics and aesthetics with an emphasis on nomadic inquiry, public pedagogy, and socially engaged art. She is currently writing a book on curiosity and new materialisms in education (Bloomsbury). Coats has published in a range of journals, and has recent book chapters in The Routledge Companion to Decolonizing Art, Craft, and Visual Culture Education; What Happens at the Intersection of Teaching and Conceptual Art; Makers, Crafters, Educators: Working for Cultural Change; and Bridging Communities Through Socially Engaged Art. In 2021, she was awarded the Pacific Region Higher Education Art Educator Award from the National Art Education Association. She is currently the co–associate editor of Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education. She served as coeditor for Journal of Social Theory in Art Education, Volume 41 (Theme: Encountering Uncertainty).

Moving into the future, our journal will be transitioning to an open-access platform due to the inability to archive our past publications with the University of Arizona, College of Fine Arts. With USSEA Board approval, Ryan Shin is working on the logistics of securing a safe place within the University of Arizona library system with minimal change. More information to come.

See our website for more information about USSEA.

Column by: Angela M. La Porte, USSEA President

Angela M. LaPorte, USSEA President
Professor and Director of Art Education, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Email: alaporte@uark.edu