Service Learning class hosts military cultural preservation experts
Anna Hillary’s “Service Learning: Art, Culture and Community” class at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) hosted two special guests recently: Colonel Andrew Scott DeJesse, Director for the U.S. Army’s Monuments Officer program, and Captain Blake Ruehrwein, Cultural Heritage Preservation Officer for the U.S. Army.
“Throughout the semester, students explore different ways their professional careers in art and design, as well as their creative skills more generally, can potentially serve their communities, cities, and even the greater world we live in,” says Hillary, Ph.D., assistant professor, Writing & Humanities.
Monuments officers are cultural heritage professionals in the U.S. Army who protect and preserve culture and cultural heritage during conflict, according to the Monuments Men and Women Foundation.
“As artists themselves with BFAs (in addition to their advanced graduate degrees in other areas), COL DeJesse and CPT Ruehrwein related well to the students and encouraged them to think deeply about why they create what they create,” Hillary says.
“This visit seemed like an opportunity for students to learn about a way government relates to art, particularly in a productive way,” explains Hillary. “It also seemed to offer a perspective on another form of service that would help us think profoundly about the myriad ways service, community and culture intertwine and matter not just to a neighborhood within a city, but also to the entire country as a whole.”
“They made me think that within the system there’s a spark of hope. I never could have imagined that two military personnel were going to have the same viewpoints as us,” said one student after the visit.
“We were left thinking through ways that culture is used to dehumanize in war, and students made connections to a similar process of dehumanization that happens to marginalized groups within a country. Students also thought through what it meant to try and instigate social change from outside of the system, as we’ve been talking about in class with relation to their service work, versus enacting social change within the system, such as within the U.S. government,” Hillary says.
Learn more about MIAD’s required Service Learning Program, which enacts MIAD’s values of COMMUNITY and KINDNESS – providing students with real-world engagement with our local community and cultivating a culture of social responsibility.
News
gener8tor Art x Sherman Phoenix announces 2024 Fall Cohort
Of the seven Milwaukee artists selected for the gener8tor Art x Sherman Phoenix 2024 Fall Cohort, three are part of the community at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD). Assistant Professor Morgan Bouldes, current senior Nomka Enkhee ’25 and Photography & Digital Media Lab Technician Grant Gill ’13 (Photography) were selected as part of the grant and mentorship program.
Painting is alive at the Painting is Dead Gallery
It’s over 20 years and 30 miles from a figure drawing class at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design to the new Painting is Dead Gallery in Fredonia, Wis., owned by Katie Musolff ’04 (Painting) and Andy Fletcher, who first met in the class.
MIAD alum publishes picture book for neurodiverse children
MIAD alum Morgan Tillisch ’24 (Illustration) wrote and illustrated a book to help neurodiverse kids feel comfortable sharing. With the help of her professors and the Lubar Innovation Center, Tillisch recently published “I Can Share My Toys” through Barnes & Noble.
WI LGBT Chamber of Commerce names MIAD Nonprofit Business of the Year
The Wisconsin LGBT Chamber of Commerce has named the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) Nonprofit Business of the Year as part of its 2024 Business Awards. The awards honor members for their contributions to build a more inclusive and diverse business community.
Innovation Center designs branded wall for M3 Insurance
Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design student Sarah Madden ’24 and Candice Roth, director of workplace experience & corporate administration at M3 Insurance, agree that collaboration was key to the success of M3’s branded wall project with MIAD’s Lubar Innovation Center. The finished graphic mural was placed in M3 Insurance’s new headquarters in downtown Milwaukee.