Evidence of Teaching Excellence

I have been teaching art at the University level to both undergraduate and graduate students for close to 10 years. I have developed courses in fine arts, art theory, and art history and been the instructor of record for these courses at public universities, private colleges and art schools, and American study abroad programs. As an adjunct instructor, visiting assistant professor, and assistant professor, I have shared my own experiences as an artist and helped students grow and flourish as learners and change-makers.

Pedagogical Approaches & Teaching goals:

            For me, teaching is means to mentor young people who are interested in developing their creativity and evolving professionally within the fields of fine art, design, art education, and cultural management. I accompany students and facilitate learning by supporting the critical development of their practices and their thinking on art making. I recognize that many art students go on to work in a wide variety of different fields and I hope to impart skills and approaches that translate and transfer into other domains. In my classes, I constantly make links between visual practices, current events, and larger modes of inquiry within the humanities and the social sciences, to encourage students to view art as both socially constructed and socially engaged.

            My student-centered approach to teaching respects the knowledge of each class participant as a starting point for the creation of collective knowledge. I put Paulo Freire’s pedagogy of autonomy into action by valuing students’ lived experiences. I aim to enable students to critically analyze their social realities by becoming aware of the unequal social relations that structure their lives. Through individual and group exercises, students make new work and respond to contemporary culture while broadening their understanding of both making, itself, and our cultural, social, and physical environment.

Summary of evaluations:

            During my career, I have taught primarily within French Universities, private schools, and for American study abroad programs. Because of cultural differences, student evaluations are rare to nonexistent in French Art Schools and Universities and most of my courses were evaluated informally, during end-of-semester discussions with student groups about what worked and what didn’t, rather than via quantitative, American-style evaluation forms. I continue to ask for feedback from students on a regular basis and student comments have helped me to become a better educator.

            Evaluations have been a valuable tool for me to gauge student enthusiasm about various course topics and assignments. They have also provided me with ideas about future course topics, artists I could have introduced but didn’t, and student concerns about grading criteria, work expectations, and turnaround times. Student enthusiasm for class content and my at-times unconventional assignments has given me the courage to pursue experimental pedagogical techniques and conceptual projects with class participants.

            In general, students were pleased with my enthusiasm, individual critiques and feedback, patience, examples of work by other artists, and excursions / location choices for site-based classes. When I first began teaching, some students felt that my courses lacked structure, clearly described objectives, and clear grading criteria. I have begun to systematically post course content online (via Moodle and class blogs using WordPress) to help students stay on top of learning objectives. Some beginner students have felt that my courses were “too challenging” because of my high expectations for student work, and I have since tried to keep my workloads in line with the norms and expectations of my department colleagues while mentoring students as they get used to producing university-level work.

            I have taken steps to improve my communication (specifically about grades) and learning goals for classes as a whole and individual class sessions. I have made my foundations classes more beginner-friendly as I have come to appreciate why students need more support and encouragement as they begin their creative journeys. Consulting with my colleagues within each art school and department where I have taught, has helped me to produce syllabi with appropriate course content to complement existing department offerings and to meet student interests in new technologies, sculptural techniques, and conceptual themes.

Inclusive Excellence:

            As a female immigrant artist, I am particularly interested in supporting gender and ethnic minorities both within and outside of the art-world. I always make a point to share work by minority and non-US artists from diverse backgrounds with my students during lectures and discussion, particularly audiovisual content in which artists comment on their processes and results.

            As a teaching artist, I have worked with many low-income children during residencies focused on bringing contemporary art to underserved populations. I was privileged to grow up in an environment with the resources to value formal education, and it was eye-opening to lead illustration and writing workshops with kindergartners in Saint-Denis, France who had no story books at home, aside from the TV guide. The bound illustrated sketchbooks we produced together over several months would become the first “real” books many kids in my workshops owned. As I experienced the critical need for art instruction in my host community, I became determined to respond to the unequal distribution of cultural capital in my own art, and to incorporate my awareness into my work as an educator.

            In my university teaching career, I have taught large groups of immigrant, first-generation, college students (primarily from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East) and I always made a point to create opportunities for students to share their perspectives and to educate the rest of us on what art-making and art-education means in different parts of the world. I have led art classes with language-learners who barely understood the language of instruction, which made communication particularly challenging. I relied on visual demonstrations, translation websites, and dialogue with other student “translators” within their peer groups to explain assignments and to help these students progress.

            I try to get to know each of my students and to share relevant career information (scholarship opportunities, summer fellowships, internships, art contests, artist residencies, grad school prospectuses) with students who could benefit from a little extra support. I have taken time outside of class to meet with students during office hours to review award applications and write recommendation letters and I try to make sure that all students take full advantage of the resources that are out their to support their studies and career advancement. I also regularly stay in touch with former students and email them artist and grant links that are relevant to their practices. In this way, I hope to help those affected by systemic discrimination to share their work with wider audiences and to broaden the conversation around contemporary art.