Rolling named NAEA higher education regional director-elect for Eastern United States

Rolling named NAEA higher education regional director-elect for Eastern United StatesApril 28, 2008Patrick Farrellpmfarrel@syr.edu

James Haywood Rolling Jr., dual associate professor of art education and teaching and leadership in Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts and School of Education, and Department of Art Education chair, has been named higher education regional director-elect for the Eastern United States for the National Art Education Association (NAEA).

Rolling’s two-year term as director will begin at the end of the 2009 NAEA conference. As director, Rolling will be responsible for organizing the Higher Education Forum for the 2010 and 2011 NAEA conferences. He also will advise the Higher Education Division director on issues to be brought before the NAEA board and serve as a member of the NAEA policy committee.

“I am happy to have been asked to serve in a capacity where I can contribute to rethinking the advocacy and efficacy of arts practices, arts education and arts-based educational research in higher education,” says Rolling.

Rolling earned a B.F.A. degree in visual arts at The Cooper Union School of Art and an M.F.A. degree in studio arts research at Syracuse University, where he was a graduate fellow in the Department of African American Studies. He completed his graduate education at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he earned Ed.M. and Ed.D. degrees in art education.

Before returning to Syracuse, Rolling served as a visual arts teacher and curriculum designer for grades K-4 at The School at Columbia University. He also was an adjunct faculty member at New York University and Teachers College and assistant professor of art education at The Pennsylvania State University.

Rolling has published numerous articles, essays and book reviews in peer-reviewed journals, including Qualitative Inquiry, Studies in Art Education, the Journal of Aesthetic Education, the Journal of Curriculum Studies and the Journal of Curriculum & Pedagogy. He is on the review panel of Art Education, the journal of the National Art Education Association, and is a founding member of the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry.

In 2006, Rolling was awarded the Narrative and Research Special Interest Group (SIG) Outstanding Dissertation Award from the American Education Research Association (AERA) for his doctoral dissertation, “Un-Naming the Story: The Poststructuralist Repositioning of African-American Identity in Western Visual Culture.” His research interests include arts-based research, the studio arts as research practice, visual culture and identity politics, curriculum theory, autoethnography and narrative inquiry in qualitative research.

NAEA is a nonprofit, educational organization created to promote art education through professional development, service, advancement of knowledge and leadership. NAEA represents more than 22,000 art educators from every level of instruction, as well as publishers, manufacturers and suppliers of art materials, parents, students, retired teachers, arts councils, schools and anyone concerned with quality art education.