The School has not been immune to the societal shifts the pandemic has introduced resulting in several changes in staff and faculty since last autumn.
Staff
Doug Manelski provided program support for the School’s IT Services since September 2006. He departed in January 2022 for a Photographer position in the UW’s Health Sciences Academic Services & Facilities.
Rhett Johnson became our Director of IT Services in 2021. He moved on to other adventures in February 2022.
Merith Bennett joined the School in November 2014 as our Constituency Relations Officer. Her work included managing donor information, events, and eventually much of School communications. She left in February 2022 to become a Marketing Specialist at FORMA Construction company.
Emily Zimmerman became the Director + Curator of the Jacob Lawrence Gallery in January 2017. She departed in April 2022 to become the Assistant Director / Assistant Curator of the Arthur Ross Gallery at University of Pennsylvania. Read more about her work in the Jacob Lawrence Gallery.
Webster Crowell became the Interim Manager of the Jacob Lawrence Gallery in April 2022. He has been assisted by part-time Assistant Curators Amelia Ketzel and Kathryn Reyes.
Tiffany Palomino was a student assistant in the School’s administration office. When she graduated in March 2022, she became a temporary Administrative Assistant 2. Tiffany very recently became the full-time Administrative Services Coordinator.
Nick Strobelt (an alum) was a temporary, part-time Instructional Technician 2 in Photo/Media since 2018. He became permanent staff in that position in June 2022.
Ruth Kazmerzak (another alum) has held several staff positions in the School since 2018. They began as a Fiscal Specialist I, later became the Administrative Services Coordinator, then were promoted to Assistant Administrator in June 2022.
Sean Lockwood (also an alum) became the Instructional Technician 2 for Interdisciplinary Visual Art and Photo/Media in July 2022.
Retired staff members Mark Rector and Jeanette Mills both returned to work part-time early in 2022 to manage IT Services (Mark) and website content / School communications (Jeanette) while vacant positions are being recruited.
Faculty
Professor Meredith Clausen has been faculty in the Division of Art History since 1979, teaching a wide variety of classes on the topic of architecture. She retired in June 2022 and will continue to pursue research and writing projects.
Stephanie Hanes taught full-time in 3D4M: ceramics + glass + sculpture starting in September 2018 and last taught in spring quarter 2022. She is now an Assistant Professor of Ceramic Sculpture at Alfred University in New York State.
Claire Cowie (an alum) taught full-time in Interdisciplinary Visual Art from September 2015 through June 2020 and then taught part-time through August 2022. She is now Head of Visual Arts at The Northwest School in Seattle.
Professor Philip Govedare joined the Painting + Drawing faculty in 1991. He will be retiring in December 2022 after spending autumn quarter in Paris teaching with the Comparative History of Ideas study abroad program titled “Art, Literature, and the Avant-Garde in the City of Light.”
The School is very happy to welcome two new tenure-track faculty in the Division of Art History this autumn: Jennifer Baez and Caitlin Earley. Both are Assistant Professors and are contributing to the breadth of topics taught. Baez’s first class will be ART H 204 C (The Arts of Africa), and Earley’s first class will be ART H 204 B (Art of the Ancient Americas: Gods and Glory).
We are also thrilled to have four full-time Lecturers in the Division of Art for the 2022–2023 academic year. Kuldeep Singh will be teaching in Painting + Drawing. Three will teach in different areas of 3D4M: ceramics + glass + sculpture: Victoria Jang, Samuel Jernigan, and Nate Watson.
Last, but most definitely not least: Industrial Design Assistant Professor Meichun Liu, who was hired in 2021, begins her work with us this quarter.