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The Foundations Program in the School of Art at Kent State is a series of courses that reveal the underlying visual rules and artistic strategies that run throughout all of our School's majors.

Foundations projects are often faster paced, unpredictable, and are not specific to a particular material or process. Foundations projects frequently challenge students to transform cheap, free, or found materials into extraordinary new compositions and push students to work in new ways. Courses included in the Foundations Program are Drawing I, Drawing II, 2D Composition, 3D Composition, and Digital Media.

No matter what level of experience our students bring with them, by working with varying materials, sizes, time limits, and environments, each student's comfort zone rapidly expands to encompass new creative territory. Experimentation, collaboration, and online resources create a shared experience that introduces students to each other and to the breadth of experiences ahead in the School of Art. 

The four core Foundations Program courses are distinct but interconnected. Each explores the same concepts and structures from the perspective of different tools and processes. Students also learn how to create their own website, archive, portfolio, and blog which help students apply for scholarships, artist residencies, and exhibitions, among other opportunities. Students have the opportunity to show the artwork created in these courses at the Foundations Show at the Center for the Visual Arts every semester. The Jack and Dora Tippens Scholarship in Foundations is announced at the spring Foundations Show in the CVA Gallery where two students are awarded $500. 

Drawing I and Drawing II

Drawing is a powerful component of any artistic practice as the best way to quickly visualize any idea. Drawing I and Drawing II give every student powerful tools to capture what they see accurately through observation, and to understand better why the interaction between our eyes, brains, and hands makes this skill so challenging to beginners and so valuable to those that master it.

2D Composition

This course is a basic introduction to flat pictorial composition. Students will explore the basic principles of design and the application of line, shape, value, texture, and color to the two-dimensional surface. Students will learn to work with traditional materials as well as new technology. In addition to developing technical proficiency with a variety of materials and tools, emphasis will be placed on visual literacy and critical thinking skills throughout this course. The major components of 2D are ORDER, COLOR, ACTION, and CONCEPT. The rules explored in each of these sections apply equally to abstraction and to representational illusions of three-dimensional space.

3D Composition

This course introduces the basic principles of composition in three dimensions. Exercises and assignments are designed to heighten sensitivity to the visual environment and to provide a challenging introduction to a variety of media and methods for generating form. In addition to developing technical proficiency with a variety of materials, emphasis will be placed on visual literacy and critical thinking skills. 3D Composition brings the same ideas introduced in 2D into physical space. 3D also has four main components: FABRICATION, CASTING AND CARVING, ORDER, and REPRESENTATION. Before students get into the intro level studio courses, which delve deeply into how artists work in different materials, 3D Composition uses simple techniques to investigate how to communicate ideas through sculptural works.

Digital Media

Digital Media applies existing and emerging digital tools, techniques, and strategies to the basic principles of composition and design introduced in 2D and 3D Composition. Strategies include creating and manipulating visual information, generating time-based and narrative imagery, translating digital information into studio production, and exploring various methods of presentation.  Students learn to use Adobe programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator and Premiere Pro and also use digital fabrication tools in the ARTech Studio. 

Through our vibrant KSU Student Chapter of the National Art Education Association, you will have the opportunity to not only participate in both the national and the state annual conventions, but will also make friendships and establish mentoring relationships that can help in your career search as well as graduate school possibilities. The NAEA Student Chapter at KSU is known for its outreach activities, which include numerous opportunities to volunteer in the surrounding community, teaching art in both traditional and nontraditional contexts.

As one of the largest art education programs in Ohio, we have four full-time faculty members. Therefore, you will learn under the direction and guidance of faculty with backgrounds in a variety of research areas in our field, providing you with the opportunity to develop your own personal teaching philosophy. Current faculty research interests range from design education, diversity, social justice education, gender studies, teaching art to students with autism, and local art education.

Linda Hoeptner Poling
Associate Professor and Program Coordinator
lhoeptne@kent.edu
Phone: 330-672-7895

Linda Hoeptner Poling, Ph.D., is an associate professor of Art Education at Â鶹´«Ã½ and holds a certificate in Gerontology. She is past president of the National Art Education (NAEA), Association Women’s Caucus (now Coalition for Feminisms in Art Education), a Distinguished Fellow for the Ohio Art Education Association (OAEA), a member of the Kent State Brain Health Research Institute, the 2018 OAEA Ohio Art Teacher of the Year, and the 2021 recipient of the NAEA Women’s Caucus Maryl Fletcher De Jong Service Award. She was recognized at Kent State in 2022 with a Distinguished Teaching Award. Hoeptner Poling is a co-editor of the 2021 anthology, National Art Education Association Women’s Caucus Lobby Activism: Feminism(s) + Art Education (Taylor and Francis & NAEA), and is co-editor of the forthcoming Art Education and Creative Aging: Older Adults as Learners, Makers, and Teachers of Art (Routledge & NAEA). She co-authored four editions of the VSA Teacher Resource Guide: A Series of Visual Art Lesson Plans Designed to Engage Students with Disabilities (Kennedy Center) in addition to the Educator Resources for TEXTURES: The History and Art of Black Hair, focusing on equitable and inclusive art curricula for PreK-12. Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) work centers Hoeptner Poling’s service and scholarship. She is a member of the Kent State/University of Akron Gerontology Certificate Advisory Council and served as a Provost Faculty Associate for the Division of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at KSU for two years (2016-2018). Hoeptner Poling is also an  Alum, class of 2018.

Koon-Hwee Kan
Associate Professor
kkan@kent.edu
Phone: 330-672-9508

Koon-Hwee Kan is an Associate Professor of Art Education at Â鶹´«Ã½ School of Art. Koon earned her Doctor of Education and Master of Arts degrees in Art Education from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Her dissertation, an ethnographic case study entitled, A Story Told Visually: The Singapore Secondary School Art Style, won several awards. Her research interests include intercultural, distance, and continuing education through interactive technology and preservice art teacher education as well as qualitative methodology, especially visual narrative inquiry. 

Koon has published more than 20 articles in art education journals such as the Studies in Art Education, Journal of Museum Education, Art Education, Visual Arts Research, and International Journal of Education & the Arts. She has presented her scholarship locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally. Funding for Koon’s research has been provided by the Â鶹´«Ã½ Research Council and Â鶹´«Ã½ College of the Arts Catalyst Interdisciplinary Project Grants, as well as the University Moulton Scholar Program Scholarship, Marilyn Zurmuehlen Award for Distinguished Research in Art Education, and Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities Seminar Fellowships.

Her recent scholarship emphasizes the engagement of diverse, worldwide communities dedicated to successful global and local connections through the visual arts. In addition to teaching myriad graduate and undergraduate classes for the School of Art, Koon has served as coordinator for the KSU Art Enrichment for Young People program for 17 years. She regularly exhibits works in local and regional juried shows. Her favorite art medium include mixed medium watercolor and digital photo collage.

Robin Vande Zande
Professor and Division Coordinator
rvandeza@kent.edu
Phone: 330-672-7866

Robin Vande Zande has taught art in a variety of settings, including elementary, middle and high school as well as higher education at Â鶹´«Ã½. She received her Ph.D in urban education with a concentration in art education at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her research area is design education for K-12 students, with publications on teaching sustainable design and urban planning, design education and brain-based principles, design education as community outreach, the design process of problem-solving, and teaching aesthetics through everyday objects. She has been a guest speaker at national and state events, speaking on the advantages of teaching design as it relates to social responsibility and the economy.

Dr. Vande Zande is chair of the Design Issues Group of the National Art Education Association and a member of the Board of Trustees Education Committee of the National Building Museum in Washington, DC.  She is a co-founder of the organization DESIGN-ED.  See link for more information.  She has been a consultant for the Frank Lloyd Wright Wescott House Museum, Springfield, Ohio, and the Design Lab Early College High School, a design-based Cleveland Public School.

Missy Higgins-Linder
Associate Lecturer - Art Education
mpaxson@kent.edu

Melissa (Missy) Higgins-Linder is passionately curious about the impact of the arts on how and why people learn, which has served her well throughout her career as an educator, leader, and advocate in arts and museums. She began her career as a K-12 art teacher in Akron Public Schools before shifting her focus to museum education. As Director of Education at the Akron Art Museum and Senior Director of Learning and Engagement at the Cleveland Museum of Art, she led teams of inspired colleagues guided by a unifying mission to use the transformative possibilities and power of art to instigate inquiry and discovery for learners of every age, stage, and ability. Her research experience includes studies of art museum-based professional development for K-12 art teachers and work as Project Manager for a national study on the impact of single-visit art museum programs on K-12 students co-sponsored by the National Art Education Association (NAEA) and Association of Art Museum Directors.

In addition to her professional work, Missy has served as the Ohio Art Education Association’s (OAEA) Museum Division Chair; chair for OAEA’s statewide student writing competition, the Jerry Tollifson Art Criticism Open; and Coordinator for the NAEA Women’s Caucus annual, juried exhibition. She received the OAEA Museum Education award in 2011 and the NAEA Western Region Museum Education award in 2019. Missy is proud to be a Â鶹´«Ã½ Alumni with a B.A. and M.A. in Art Education. Outside of work, you will find her making food and art with her two inquisitive kids, trying to convince her patient husband to adopt more pets, rearranging the house to make room for more books, or hanging out by the water in Northeast Ohio. 

Guidance through the entire process with several advisors from Art Education and the School of Art, an advisor at the College of the Arts and an advisor in the College of Education, Health and Human Services assist you in making choices that will help you reach your goals. At the completion of your course of study our Career Exploration and Development office will work with you to secure your first teaching position. The Center has a staff whose specific focus is on the placement of KSU education graduates. This support is available throughout your life as an alumna of KSU.