NEWS Newsletter of the College Art Association Volume 30, Number 5 September 2005 Building the Literature of Art Pedagogy Robert Bersson, professor emer- itus of art and art history at Contents James Madison University in 2 From the Executive Director Harrisonburg, Virginia, and a member of the CAA Education 4 Postmodern Art and Learning Committee, introduces this spe- 6 Inspiring Pedagogy: The Art cial issue of CAA News, dedi- of Teaching Art cated to art pedagogy. 7 Problem-Based Learning in the Art-History Survey looked high. I looked low. I Course poured through books and 9 CAA Teaching Award Ijournals. I consulted the Winners Speak World Wide Web. The amount 10 Developing a Reflective of writing on art pedagogy is Teaching Practice astonishingly small. It might be From Edification to Engage- argued that most of it is con- 12 ment: Learning Design in tained within two volumes, the Museums first being the Fall 1995 Art Journal, published by our own 14 Pedagogy Sessions at the professional organization. In 2006 Conference that thematic issue, entitled 16 Annual Conference Update “Rethinking the Introductory 19 Copyright Clearance: A Art History Survey,” the guest Publisher’s Perspective editor Bradford R. Collins Academic Freedom and the writes: 22 Academic Bill of Rights “This issue of the Art Journal CAA Names 2005 Fellows Teaching art in seventeenth-century Holland: Jan Steen, The Drawing is the first of what is hoped will 25 Lesson, 1665, oil on panel, 19 3/8 x 16 1/4 in. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los be a number of issues dedicated 28 Advocacy Update Angeles, 83.PB.388. Artwork in the public domain. to the topic of pedagogy. This 29 CAA News program is part of a larger agen- da of the College Art Association’s Board of Directors and its executive director, Susan Ball, to 30 New caa.reviews Editor-in- redress the long-standing neglect of education at the expense of scholarship and production. The Chief Art Journal issue and the various sessions on education topics at our recent annual meetings con- 31 Join a CAA Committee stitute a concerted effort to make the questions surrounding the teaching of art and art history more Join a CAA Award Jury central to our profession.”1 Regrettably, the hoped-for subsequent “number of issues” on pedagogy in Art Journal turned out 32 Affiliated Society News to be just one, published four years later (Spring 1999) on the theme of “Rethinking Studio Art 33 Solo Exhibitions by Artist Education.” With no other collections of writings on college-level art teaching in existence, these Members two volumes stand alone as the cornerstone of a much-needed pedagogical literature. Containing a 36 Opportunities variety of valuable articles, the two issues are rightly prized by art and art-history instructors 37 Classifieds CONTINUED ON PAGE 3 “Historical Studies” and “Contemporary From the Executive Director Issues/Studio Art.” This has led to a new flowering of pedagogical topics each year. The strategic plan for 2005–2010 identi- CAA and Pedagogy fies workforce issues as a critical area on which we will focus our efforts in the next ith this Journal, known as College Art Journal, five years. To this end, we have estab- special devoted much of its content to pedagogi- lished a Department of Research and Wissue of cal issues. Likewise, sessions on teaching Career Development, led by Stacy Miller, CAA News on ped- issues were standard at the Annual that is responsible for our fellowship pro- agogy, we offer a Conference, as they are today. But by the gram, the Online Career Center, and the focused examina- time I joined CAA in 1986, the organiza- Career Fair at the Annual Conference. tion of an issue tion had moved away from the discussion This department will launch new and that the majority of of pedagogy and the exploration of the expanded programs to help members at all Photo: Andrei Ralko CAA’s members theory and practice of teaching in the arts. stages of their careers, including roundta- Susan Ball have in common: Whatever the reasons, we were giving rel- bles, mentoring services, workshops, and education. About 75 percent of CAA’s atively little attention to pedagogy in our other resources for those who teach both 14,000+ individual members are involved, activities. art history and art practice. full- or part-time, in education—in col- At that time we were a smaller organiza- And this is only the beginning. Our leges, universities, art schools, community tion, and everyone wore many hats. I online journal caa.reviews is developing a colleges, secondary schools, and muse- served on the Art Journal Editorial Board new series of critical reviews of the cur- ums. Teaching is clearly identified as and as book-reviews editor—a role that rent crop of art-survey textbooks, both essential to CAA in our Mission Statement today cannot be filled by CAA staff, but general introductory texts and period sur- and organizational by-laws. only by CAA members, who join our edi- veys, as well as some that are used in art- The College Art Association was found- torial boards, committees, and juries appreciation courses. These will begin to ed in 1911 when college art teachers split through an open application process. I appear in the course of the coming year. off from the Western Drawing and Manual commissioned a series of critical reviews The Art Bulletin will soon review a new Training Association (later the National on the major art-history survey textbooks and provocative art survey text. Art Art Education Association), hence the from Bradford Collins (which appeared in Journal has just published a roundtable name that has endured for ninety-four several issues in 1989–90) and encouraged discussion on the art-history survey years. Since then, our umbrella has the Editorial Board to develop guest-edit- course, an essay on new-media art educa- expanded significantly, so much so that 25 ed issues on the education of artists and art tion, and a set of three dialogues between percent of CAA’s members do not identify historians. David Levi Strauss and Daniel Joseph themselves as educators—primarily the Over the years I have worked with the Martinez dedicated in part to an explo- scholars and artists who work in museums organizers of our conference sessions and ration of art and pedagogy. and galleries. panels (both staff and program chairs) to And now we offer you this special issue In our early years, our journals were a include a significant number of sessions of CAA News, the largest we have yet pub- primary area where CAA’s work on peda- on pedagogy. Joseph Ansell, studio-pro- lished. In essays, commentary, and anec- gogical issues was done. The first decade gram chair for the 1991 Annual Confer- dotes, authors drawn from CAA’s mem- of The Art Bulletin saw more articles pub- ence in Washington, D.C., organized sev- bership explore pedagogical issues in the lished on education and teaching issues eral education-focused panels and later arts, both broadly and narrowly construed. than on art-historical scholarship. On the chaired the CAA Education Committee, We are indebted to Anne Collins Goodyear fiftieth anniversary of the journal, in 1964, which has featured pedagogical issues reg- of the National Portrait Gallery and chair Millard Meiss wrote, “During the first ularly in its committee-sponsored confer- of the Education Committee, for spear- years … The Art Bulletin served as an ence sessions. heading this exciting collection of articles, indispensable house organ for the newest Since those days, CAA has expanded its and to our staff editor, Christopher branch of the humanities then beginning to work on pedagogy from publications and Howard, for getting this marathon issue grow, against heavy resistance, in our col- conference sessions to a panoply of activi- into print. To you, the readers, I say thank- leges and universities. Like a good cook- ties. Today, the Education Committee you for the inquiries, comments, and criti- book, it was full of recipes for courses, addresses a broad range of educational cisms that led to this issue. As always, we most of them novel, to be offered to issues, and its chairs and members hail rely on you to let us know how best we unsuspecting undergraduates.” But as from a wide array of academic programs can serve you—telling us not only what CAA changed, so did that publication. and museums. CAA’s 2000–2005 strategic you value in our current programs but also Meiss continued, “This important function plan devoted a great deal of attention to what more we can do. Please send your … was later assumed by Parnassus and the conference. As a result, we added comments to me at [email protected] then, beginning in 1941, at a much more “Education and Professional Practices” as and letters to the editor responding to arti- sophisticated and often theoretical level by a third category for session submissions; cles to [email protected]. … the Art Journal.”1 the other two categories were broadened —Susan Ball, CAA Executive Director For its first twenty years (1941–60), Art from “Art History” and “Studio Art” to 1. Millard Meiss, “The Art Bulletin at Fifty,” The Art Bulletin 46, no. 1 (March 1964): 1. 2 CAA NEWS SEPTEMBER 2005 Building the Literature of Art ing or presenting on pedagogy an activity this issue on pedagogy, CAA News will Pedagogy of reduced professional significance. focus on career development (November CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 In spite of and because of these obsta- 2005) and teaching and practice in new cles, CAA, to its great credit, has been media (January 2006).