The Intersection of Teaching, Scholarship and Service—

Where Professor-citizens and Student-citizens Meet

Hilary A. Braysmith, Teacher-scholar-citizen

The ways professors express their love for their disciplines varies and chairs and deans should nourish this variety because it adds color and texture to departments and offers students a spectrum of experiences. Varieties in philosophy and practice can stimulate discussions among colleagues while allowing individuals to find the paths best suited to their gifts and passions. I present here the philosophy that matches my passions and which enables me to flourish. The graphic (below) illustrates my philosophy of integrating the three areas of my professional practice—teaching, scholarship, and service. Using images representing accomplishments from the three branches of my practice,

1 the

graphic shows how their convergence increases their impact, enables me to live the life of the professor scholar-citizen, and readies my students to become both professionals in their chosen areas as well as engaged citizens, able to take their places in a global community of diverse perspectives. The graphic articulates the most important skillsets, in my view, that professors model to students to help students achieve the life of the professionally prepared and engaged global citizen. These skillsets are the ability to: think critically, master the discipline, identify problems, apply discipline-based solutions, and team problem-solve in a diverse cultural context. As the flow of the circular model underscores, I do not practice nor do students learn these interdependent skillsets in a linear progression. It is the confluence of my scholarship and service that enables me to teach students how to understand context, recognize ethnic and gender constructions and learn about murals and other public art forms. It is my scholar citizenship that qualifies me to teach students how cities operate, why cities need experts in the arts to achieve civic, social and economic as well as cultural goals. It this kind of scholar-citizenship that enables me to mentor students through running public art projects and working, as professionals, in distressed neighborhoods and among marginalized populations. In other words, it is the integration of my teaching, scholarship, and service that provides students the opportunities to think critically, master the discipline, identify problems, apply discipline-based solutions, understand cultural contexts, and team problem-solve in a diverse cultural context. These skillsets can be learned from and applied to traditional classroom assignments in addition to field-based classes dedicated to community problem-solving through the different visual art disciplines. Students discover that “understanding the context” applies to identifying community problems as well as understanding historical artworks or that thinking critically may be a collaborative deliberation from diverse perspectives rather than just an individual thought process. They find that “discipline-based solutions” can mean presenting on the work of scholars and artists or teaming up with peers from graphic or interactive media design, art history, sculpture, photography, art education etc. in a service-learning class. They learn that “discipline-based” may require including experts outside the visual arts, e.g., engineers, musicians, poets, or arborists. In field-based classes, especially, students blend their knowledge and abilities with the contributions of community partners whose expertise may not come from formal learning at all.

1 See final page of document for list of images.

Teaching

ServiceScholarship

Thinking Critically

UnderstandingCultural Context

Mastering the Discipline

Identifying the Problem

Finding Discipline-BasedSolutions

The Intersection of Teaching, Scholarship, and Service:Where Professor-Citizens and Student-Citizens Meet

Team Problem- Solving in a Diverse Cultural Context

Hilary A. Braysmith

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Dossier Cover Image Identification List

1. Ross, Scott, Gateway, 2015, Sculpt EVV Project.

Artwork part of Sculpt EVV exhibition

o See C.V. Scholarship—Peer Reviewed Exhibitions

o See C.V. Scholarship—Grants

Picture shows one USI student mentor with some of the Sculpt EVV neighborhood youth

docents, June 2015

2. Sculpt EVV youth docent (with USI student mentor) painting pots to assemble into 150 small

sculptures

Activity part of “Great Street Makeover Project” for the Sculpt EVV opening, June 2013

3. Sculpt EVV youth docent at African Art Pop Up Exhibition, Sculpt EVV opening, June, 2014.

Activity part of the Sculpt EVV opening, June 2014

4. Cervantez, Yreina, La Ofrenda, 1988-89.

Mural analyzed in Braysmith, “ Constructing Athletic Agents in the Chicano/a Culture of

Los Angeles Reprinted in: Sporting Cultures: Hispanic Perspectives on Sport, Text and

the Body (Sport in the Global Society series), Johnson, Louise and Donald Wood, eds.

London and New York: Routledge, pp. 39-57, 2008,

o See C.V. Scholarship—Peer Reviewed Articles, Book Chapters, and Exhibition

Catalogues

Mural taught in ARTH 355 (Contemporary Art), ARTH 490 Art and Identity, ARTH 490

Nonwestern Art

5. Friedrich, Caspar David, Klosterfriedhof im Schnee, 1817-19.

Painting analyzed in Braysmith “Divine Nature, Sacred Ruins, and National

Redemption—Examining Ecclesiastical Spaces in the Paintings of Caspar David

Friedrich” in: Entdecken – Erforschen – Bewahren: Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte und

Denkmalpflege, Berlin: Lukas Verlag, at-press, 2015.

o See C.V. Scholarship—Peer Reviewed Articles, Book Chapters, and Exhibition

Catalogues

Painting taught in ARTH 353 (19th century Art)