February 28
RCVA Lecture Hall, 2nd Floor
5:30 pm
Sadashi Inuzuka

Inuzuka has been living in North America for over 25years (Born in Japan). Examining the life lived between two cultures Inuzuka’s installations explore the intersection of human society and the natural world, traditional and non-traditional forms, as well as art and science. The work explores a range of subjects – ecological imbalance, the impact of invasive non-native species, and water consumption and conservation.

March 19, 2008
Visiting Scholar in Arts Education & Pioneer Arts Educator

This annual event was created to celebrate the achievements of pioneers in art and music education, and to encourage educators in the arts to look toward the future. Our visiting scholar is Philip Yenawine, developer of Visual Thinking Strategies, former Director of Education at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and author of numerous books on viewing and understanding art. Mr. Yenawine will work with students and other members of the university and museum community throughout the day, and in the evening will address the public on the subject of “Art, Thinking and Education.” This year we honor WMU Art Education Program alumna Susan Eckhardt for her achievements and contributions to arts education. Ms. Eckhardt currently serves as the Director of Education at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts. This project is presented by the Gwen Frostic School of Art and made possible through the College of Fine Arts Fund for the Visiting Pioneer Pedagogue in Art and Music Education. Philip Yenawine appears through a cooperative arrange between the WMU Art Education Program and the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Philip Yenawine

Philip Yenawine is co-founder of Visual Understanding in Education, a non-profit educational research organization that develops and studies ways of using art to teach thinking and communication skills. VUE’s curriculum, Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), is in use in schools and museums across the US, as well as in European and Central Asian countries. The VTS process begins with group interaction and works toward individual problem solving, along the way developing a variety of transferable cognitive skills that have been shown to improve classroom and test performance.

Director of Education at The Museum of Modern Art from 1983–93, Yenawine has also served as consulting curator at the Institute for Contemporary Art, and as Visiting Professor of art education at Massachusetts College of Art. He is a founding director of the Aspen Center for the Visual Arts, now the Aspen Art Museum, and has been affiliated with education programs at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the South Street Seaport Museum, New York; and the Department of High School Programs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He has been a panelist and consultant to the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as numerous state arts councils.

Yenawine has authored and edited many books and catalogs on art, culture and education, including Art Matters: How the Culture Wars Changed America, Castelli and His Artists: Twenty-five Years, and How to Look at Modern Art, as well as books for young readers including Key Art Terms for Beginners, and How to Show Grown-ups the Museum. He is a consistent contributor to journals and anthologies on issues of art and education, as well as a frequent lecturer.

His contributions have been recognized by the National Art Education Association Award for Distinguished Service, 1993; National Art Education Association Museum Educator of the Year, 1991; New York State Governor’s Award for Visual AIDS and A Day Without Art, 1990; New York State Governor’s Award for The Museum of Modern Art’s program for people with hearing disabilities, 1984.

March 27
RCVA Lecture Hall, 2nd Floor
Sadashi Inuzuka

Annual Frostic School of Art Student Exhibition Juror