Rolling named higher education division director-elect of National Art Education Association

Rolling named higher education division director-elect of National Art Education AssociationMarch 24, 2009Patrick 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 head of the art education program, has been elected higher education division director-elect of the National Art Education Association (NAEA). The four-year term, two as director-elect and two as director, will begin at the close of the NAEA Board of Directors meeting to be held April 21 at the national convention in Minneapolis.

Rolling’s election to this national office supersedes his appointment last year as higher education division director-elect of the Eastern Region of the United States. A successor will be named to complete Rolling’s term in that position.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 SU, where he was a graduate fellow in the African American Studies Department. 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 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 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.