Doctoral Program in Art Education at Indiana University
The IU Doctoral Program Story
The art education doctoral program story begins when Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, was founded in 1820. It grew from a single building, located south of the community of Bloomington, into, in 1836, a burgeoning campus on the north and east side of the community. It is a rural campus, in a mid-sized city, although it serves the entire state and attracts students from other states and international students from many countries.
Like those of many other, well established universities, Indiana University's enrollments grew exponentially after World War II. As the surge of post-war pressures and the GI Bill effected college enrollments, the number of students grew throughout universities all across the United States. A demand also grew for expanding numbers of elementary and secondary teachers throughout the country, to meet the needs of veterans with children of public school ages. At the same time, a growing demand for a better educated population, to serve the industries of an increasingly prosperous nation, called for additional expansion of higher education. Further, as new businesses, institutions, and colleges and universities were being built, there was an increased need for teachers to staff them. The rapidity of expansion in higher education during the 1950s, therefore, had no precedent at any previous time in history. Indiana University grew from a student population, prior to the Second World War, of less than 4,000, to more than 20,000 by the time the doctoral program in art education was established in 1963.
The Indiana University School of Education was in the middle of this post-war ferment. Not only did the School serve a rapidly growing body of resident students, our state government mandated that all Indiana teachers should eventually hold master's degrees. That requirement placed an added burden on the faculty to provide programs and many of these programs were created to be held during summers and in special sessions. Faculty members also fanned out across the state every week, by car and university airplane, to bring courses to teachers in what then were called 'extension centers' that occupied sites that varied from old office buildings to new structures. Much later, these Extension Centers became seven regional campuses of Indiana University, with their own full-time faculties and administration.
An important part of this post-war expansion of IU's School of Education was enrollment of a growing number of students who sought a doctoral degree. They were to become the next generation of higher education faculty. American students also were joined in this quest for doctoral degrees by students from other countries whose governments recognized the need for higher levels of academic expertise. A Doctorate of Education (Ed.D.), offered in Elementary Education and Secondary Education was the only doctoral degree available to students in art education, prior to reorganization of advanced degree programs in the School of Education during the early 1960s.
Establishment Of A Doctoral Degree In Art Education
The leadership of the School of Education in the early 1960s supported development of advanced degrees in various curriculum areas. By the middle 1960s, changes in elementary and secondary education programs permitted establishment of an Ed.D. degree and a Department of Art Education. Before that time, art education students could only receive a doctoral degree in Elementary or Secondary Education. This placed some at a disadvantage, because larger school districts frequently employed subject matter specialists as supervisors, where a doctoral degree was appropriate; and these people wanted to be identified by their specialization. Many college art departments also employed fine arts faculty to prepare art teachers for public school teaching and they, too, needed education that distinguished them from studio faculty, whose terminal degree was the Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) degrees, and art historians, who traditionally held doctorates.
By 1962, the Indiana University School of Education was ready to move toward greater diversification in degree offerings within curricular areas, and faculty began to bring about changes that would lead to doctoral programs in various curricular areas. A search was conducted, during the early part of 1962, for a recognized art educator to assume the task of establishing master's and doctoral programs in art education. In the end , however, a new doctoral graduate, Guy Hubbard, was appointed in the Fall of 1962 to undertake this task.
From his graduate studies at Stanford University, Hubbard brought with him the philosophy of June King McFee. Using a program structure similar to the one at Stanford, while adjusting it to existing graduate programs in the IU School of Education, Hubbard created a proposal for both a master's and a doctoral program that were separate from, but compatible with, existing elementary and secondary graduate programs. This proposal was revised repeatedly, on the advice of administrators in the School of Education and committee members to whom it was submitted, until both programs were approved in late Fall, 1963. The next task was to attract and enroll students who possessed potential to be successful in these programs. For the master's degree program, the task was simple, because the state mandated master's degrees for all classroom teachers. Further large numbers of teachers from southern states attended summer sessions in Bloomington. Many of these were art teachers and a growing number elected to enroll in IU's program because it was possible to specialize in art education.
Recruiting students for the Doctoral Degree program called for different strategies than those for prospective undergraduates or master's students. At the outset, recruitment of doctoral students for the new program was conducted largely by mailing brochures, and by promotional activities at state, regional, and national conferences. These efforts were later supplemented by the visibility of faculty contributions in various professional publications. In addition, large summer session enrollments, during the middle 1960s, led to large classes in graduate art education and several doctoral students were recruited from these courses. Two doctoral students from overseas, and two from the United States, were previously enrolled in the existing secondary program and continued their studies, while also taking new courses introduced for the doctoral program in art education.
Other institutions across the country also were establishing graduate programs in art education at this time, or were expanding into art education from more general programs. New doctoral programs appeared at such institutions as Peabody College of Education, The University of Kansas, the University of Oregon, Arizona State University, and Ball State University. The best-known centers for art education in the country, for some time, had been offering their own advanced degree programs. These included Pennsylvania State University, Ohio State University, the University of Wisconsin, Florida State University, and Teachers College, Columbia University.
Establishment of doctoral programs in several curricular areas in the 1970s, led to structural changes within the organization of the IU School of Education. While all doctoral programs in the School of Education were obliged to have specific requirements in common, various faculties were relatively autonomous. Art education, for example, became a department and was semi-autonomous in ways that formerly had not been possible. Elementary education evolved into a large program that turned to the Art Education Department for service courses for its students. This change provided numbers of associate instructorships for art education doctoral students which in turn afforded college level teaching experiences, stipends, and fee remissions to support doctoral studies.
In the wake of reduced enrollments, however, most of the departments, during the early 1980s, became program areas within a Department of Curriculum and Instruction, with the exception of Languages Arts which retained its own departmental autonomy.
Contraction from a divisional structure, with semi-autonomous departments, to program areas, did persuade the University to recognize Ph.D. degrees in curricular areas, including art education. The Ed.D. is an internal degree in the School of Education whereas the Ph.D. is a university degree administered by the Graduate School. Moreover, while efforts had originally been made to design the Ed.D. to serve both future teaching faculty and future researchers, it was later perceived primarily to be a practitioner degree. A school-wide revision of doctoral programs at Indiana University, during the early 1980s, identified numbers of duplications and inconsistencies that were creating difficulties with the new liaison with the Graduate School, which was responsible for awarding the Ph.D. degree. These duplications and inconsistencies were eliminated, courses were redesigned, and programs throughout the school became more consistent.
Art Education Graduate Faculty
In the years following World War II, Indiana University was primarily an institution that served the higher education needs of the state and midwest region. While some distinguished faculty were recruited from other countries, most were American born and, in the School of Education, a substantial proportion in the early 1960s were from Indiana or the Midwest. In response to the rapid expansion of students during the immediate post-war years, a number of IU laboratory school, K-12 classroom teachers moved to the School of Education and were granted faculty status. It was only during further rapid expansion of higher education in the 1960s and 1970s that the faculty began to reflect a broader base of academic, ethnic, and cultural origins and were products of doctoral programs from across the nation.
A notable addition to the art education faculty, in the Fall of 1963, was the appointment of Mary Rouse who recently graduated from Stanford University. Her arrival coincided with the establishment of the doctoral program. Without her presence, the program might well have failed, because the task of establishing a viable doctoral program was beyond the efforts of the other faculty who were involved in other departmental and School of Education activities.
When the art education doctoral degree was established at Indiana University, Fred Mills was head of the art education program. He left in 1965 and his position was assumed for one year, from 1965 to 1966, by Guy Hubbard, until the appointment of Harlan Hoffa. Hubbard took over once again in 1969 when Hoffa left and continued in this position until 1980. He was followed by Gilbert Clark, and the position is presently occupied by Enid Zimmerman.
Hubbard and Rouse were joined during the late 1960s and 1970s by other faculty, a number of whom became doctoral advisors, including Gene Mittler, Jesse Lovano-Kerr, and Gilbert Clark. Clark joined the faculty after the death of Mary Rouse in 1976. This faculty remained relatively stable until the 1980s, when Mittler and Lovano-Kerr left. Enid Zimmerman had been a faculty member since 1979, and she, with Clark and Hubbard, became the art education graduate faculty until the mid-1990s, when Clark and Hubbard retired. At this time, Zimmerman, is the principal advisor for doctoral students in the Art Education Program. In addition to being Coordinator of Art Education, she is Coordinator of Gifted and Talented Education and Adjunct Professor of Gender Studies.
Among the many highlights of faculty participation in inquiry that influenced what doctoral students studied and researched were the following activities. Hubbard and Rouse's attendance at the Penn State Conference in 1965, Rouse's editorship of Studies in Art Education from 1971 through 1973, and her position as founder of the NAEA research sessions in the early 1970s. Hubbard and Rouse also co-authored an elementary art textbook series that had its beginnings in 1971, Hubbard wrote a college level art education textbook in 1982, and Clark and Zimmerman co-authored a junior high art textbook in 1978 and two textbooks about art talent development in 1984 and 1987. From 1972 through 1974, Lovano-Kerr's received a university grant to implement multicultural curriculum and, in the 1970s, Hubbard was one of first initiators, both locally and nationally, of applying new technologies to the field of art education. From 1983 through 1986, Clark was editor of Art Education and from 1995 he has served as editor of InSEA News. In addition, Clark's past curriculum experience at the Southwest Regional Education Laboratory, from 1974 through 1975, influenced his contributions to DBAE; from 1968 through 1994 he also developed Clark's Drawing Abilities Test that has been used both nationally and internationally. Zimmerman, in turn, has been recognized for her record of research and publication in gender issues, teacher education, community-based art education, and art talent development, as well as her leadership as Chair of the first NAEA Research Commission and Coordinator of the first NAEA Research Task Forces.
Several grants and research activities over the years has spawned a number of studies and dissertations conducted by doctoral students as well as collaborative research between faculty members and doctoral students. IU Art Education faculty members have received a number of large, state and federal grants that have greatly influenced and supported doctoral level students and their research. Among these were Rouse's two United States Department of Education grants, one in 1963 to develop a descriptive scale for rating art products, and another in 1965 to support a study about art programs in predominantly 'Negro' colleges. Later, Clark and Zimmerman received an NEH Youth Project Grant (1982-1984), a Getty Institute for Education on the Arts Preservice Teacher Education Grant (1986-1988), and a Jacob Javits Gifted and Talented Students' Grant in three rural sites with diverse populations in Indiana, New Mexico, and South Carolina (1993-1996). Grants from the Indiana Department of Education were received by Hubbard, in the 1980s, to educate teachers in uses of current technology and Clark and Zimmerman, from 1990-1996, to develop art teacher leadership in the area of gifted and talented education. In addition, in 1993 Clark received a grant from The Getty Institute for Education in the Arts to establish an ERIC/ART data base that currently is housed in the IU School of Education, as part of the ERIC/ChESS center for social studies education. Clark was Director of ERIC/ART until his retirement in 1996. Zimmerman became Director at that time, and in 1999 received a grant from NAEA to continue funding ERIC/ART activities.
Doctoral Program of Studies
During the early years of the art education, graduate program, doctoral studies followed a pattern substantially like that established by McFee at Stanford. The program focused on applications of the social sciences to art education, including psychology of perception, creativity, and the significance of sociology and anthropology to the study of art. This approach was quite different from the dominant one espoused by Viktor Lowenfeld, modeled on his own scheme of human development and creative self-expression. The other influential and strongly philosophical model at that time was that of Manual Barkan, with his emphasis on art disciplines as the core of art education programs. June McFee's cultural studies approach to research based on psychology and anthropology, and Asahel Woodruff's focus on learning objectives also were theoretical frameworks that influenced doctoral study in art education during these years.
In the late 1960s, a liaison was established with faculty in the Philosophy of Education that enriched the content of the Art Education Program at the doctoral level. As a consequence, numbers of students elected minors in these areas, although the overwhelming majority of doctoral students continued to elect studio art or art history as minor areas of study. In part this selection was due to course work students could apply to their programs from earlier studies and previous master's degrees. Another popular minor area for art education doctoral students, during this time, was Instructional Systems Technology, because it had a strong visual-perceptual component and focused on new technologies in education.
Emphases for doctoral study have evolved over time due to the interests and expertise of the Art Education faculty, as well as resources available throughout the University, and in the School of Education where the Art Education Program is housed. Presently, students in the art education program are required to take seminars in areas of curriculum and instruction and teacher education. Doctoral students who intended to teach art education in American colleges and universities are accepted into the doctoral program only if they have had at least three years of teaching experience at the K-12 levels. International students, who presently comprise about one quarter of the art education doctoral students, are exempted from this condition, together with those who are focusing on museum studies. Because the Art Education Program is located in the Curriculum and Instruction Department, present emphasis in the doctoral program is on preparing doctoral students to be researchers in their respective fields. Although a number of doctoral students in art education have a minor area of study in fine arts, a trend is evident toward electing minor in areas beyond studio or art history. Currently, doctoral students have minor areas of study in a variety of subjects including international and comparative education, multicultural education, gender studies, interactive technologies, museum studies, and gifted and talented education.
Backgrounds of Art Education Doctoral Students
From its inception, doctoral students joined the Art Education Program with many different backgrounds and interests. Some were members of college faculties when new requirements for retention and/or promotion called for a terminal degree. Others had been art teachers in elementary or secondary schools and hoped to enter higher education where an earned doctorate was mandatory. Others were interested in becoming school district art administrators. Others entered the program because of research interests related to museum education, multicultural education, and special education. Some came because of the records of activity set by Rouse, and later by Lovano-Kerr and Zimmerman, in supporting equality for women in academia. Some were attracted by Clark and Zimmerman's research in the area of artistically talented education. Hubbard and Rouse's, and Clark and Zimmerman's activities, in publishing elementary, secondary, and college level art education textbooks, also attracted students who were interested in curriculum studies. Still others desired to study in programs initiated by Hubbard in the School of Education that involved new technologies and computer-based education. Finally, some individuals joined the program to pursue careers that combined studio art and art education and where a doctoral degree would serve them better than a terminal M.F.A studio degree.
The numbers of overseas students gradually increased from 1964 although, until recently, they were never a large number. Most were sponsored by their governments. Some joined the program because of close ties between their country and Indiana University. Others had friends who had attended or were attending the University in other areas. Others had read published materials by art education faculty members. Still others appeared without warning, having simply made a guess about where to study. In the past decade, Clark and Zimmerman's affiliation with the International Society for Education Through Art (InSEA) as World Councilors and editors of InSEA News has acquainted them with students around the world and has attracted an increased number of international students to pursue their doctoral studies in art education at IU.
In 2000, Indiana University served over 35,600 students on its Bloomington campus, with 3,775 students in the School of Education, of which 1,0826 are graduate students and within that number 631 are enrolled as full-time doctoral students. Within this doctoral population, 400 are women, 231 are men, 133 are international students, and 78 are minority students. The number of doctoral students in the Art Education Program, from its inception in the early 1960s, has ranged from between 8 to 16 students with the biggest dip occurring in the late 1970s and 1980s. There presently are 13 doctoral students (nine who are full-time), including 4 men, 9 women, one minority, and three international students. Recent doctoral graduates have positions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Cincinnati, University of Florida, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Eastern Kentucky University.
Doctoral Dissertation Themes
More than 75 doctoral dissertations have been completed since the first two dissertations were awarded in 1964. Depending on faculty expertise and doctoral student interest, dissertation topics and research methodologies varied over the 35 years the doctoral program has existed (see the appendix for a listing of dissertations). In the 1960s, when educational research was influenced by psychological constructs and empirical methodologies, dissertations completed at IU reflected Mary Rouse's interests in these areas as well as her own studies at what were then termed 'Negro' colleges. Experimental studies were concerned with topics that included spatial relationships, personality traits, visual aesthetic qualities, art attitudes, and color sensitivity with subjects being K-12 students, student teachers, and college students. Descriptive studies, that used surveys and causal-comparative methods, focused on comparative education and student teachers' perceptions of problems related to their teaching. Other topics included an historical study about education implications of quilting bees and a philosophical study in which a theoretical model for art teaching was constructed.
During the 1970s, experimental studies continued to dominate, although Lovano-Kerr fostered an interest in perceptual studies and Hubbard mentored several students in dissertations with art history and curriculum emphases. Mittler's interests in teaching art appreciation and art criticism are evident in his students' dissertation topics. In addition, a number of doctoral students studied with Elizabeth Steiner, a Philosophy of Education professor, completing dissertations that examined theoretical constructs related to art education. Zimmerman, who was one of her students, later became a faculty member in art education. Experimental dissertations included topics about responses to works of art, art information dissemination, perceptual style, cognitive abilities, art preferences, student creative tempo and response sets, and nonverbal creativity tests. Descriptive studies, that used surveys and correlational methodologies, explored topics about art museums, teacher training programs, program evaluation, college level administration, and curriculum models. Historical studies focused on 'Negro' colleges, art centers, the status of art education, and methods of art teaching. In addition, several dissertations used philosophical methods to investigate learner objectives in aesthetic education and art education theory analysis.
A dramatic shift occurred during the 1980s from emphasis on experimental studies to those that were ethnographic and used naturalistic methodologies. This reflected a national trend in educational research that turned from psychological bases to fields of anthropology and sociology for methodologies for conducting educational research. At the IU School of Education, Robert Wolfe had begun a center for critical assessment studies based on a legal model while Egon Guba was involved in educating faculty and students about a new paradigm for educational research that termed 'naturalistic' inquiry. Many students took courses from these professors and Zimmerman attended a number of Guba's seminars and began to conduct research using naturalistic methodologies. At the same time, Gilbert Clark joined the faculty and brought expertise in experimental methodologies in areas related to test development, art appreciation, comprehensive art instruction, curriculum and instruction, and gifted and talented education. In the 1980s, Zimmerman and joined Clark in conducting numerous studies about the education of gifted and artistically talented students. These areas of faculty expertise influenced students' research and dissertations that were conducted during the 1980s and 1990s.
A number of dissertations written during the 1980s that could be classified as descriptive and focused on participant observation case studies and group studies. Topics of these dissertations were naturalistic evaluations of museum settings and early childhood programs, use of instructional strategies in school settings, and curricular development in specific school contexts. A few experimental studies were written about art preferences and art testing, as well as an historical study of higher education art departments. Dissertations that can be classified as philosophical addressed topics that included a theoretical model for aesthetic education, critical analysis of international art curricula, and concepts about aesthetic education.
By the late 1980s, Zimmerman had joined Hubbard and Clark as a doctoral dissertation mentor. She encouraged use of descriptive research in areas of gender and diversity issues, community-based concerns especially in rural communities, and emphasized developing a personal style of presentation of data. Clark and Zimmerman's large federal grant, Project ARTS (about teaching art to talented art students in rural communities in three school districts in various states) employed a number of doctoral students who later did their dissertation research at these sites. Almost all dissertations conducted at this time were descriptive and included several lengthy ethnographies about artists and art education, in a rural community connected with Project ARTS. Another was an analysis of all art achievement tests developed by states in the mid 1990s. A number of case studies were completed about teaching art criticism, museum studies, reflective teaching, and several group studies were conducted in which social action, school reform, and community-based art education initiatives were general themes. The mode of representation often was storytelling where the personal observations of the researchers became important sources of information. An historical study of art curricular change in one school district and an experimental study of art preferences also were two other dissertations completed at this time.
The Getty Center for Education on the Arts, in the 1990s, awarded fellowships based on doctoral dissertation proposals and four doctoral students from IU received these Getty Fellowships. In addition, art education doctoral students at IU received numerous internal and university travel and study grants associated with their research; three received outstanding, IU School of Education Curriculum and Instruction dissertation awards, one received the dissertation award for the School of Education (on an average there are about 50 dissertations completed each year), and one received the first Dissertation Proposal Award from the IU School of Education. The graduate program in art education was ranked 6th in the United States and Canada in a survey conducted by Tom Anderson, Elliot Eisner and Sally McRory in 1999.
Current Concerns and Future Expectations
At present, according to a pamphlet distributed to all those applying for doctoral study, the Art Education Programs main goals are to prepare students to: (1) teach in art education programs in institutes of higher education, museum education settings, and administrative positions at state, local, and national levels; (2) conduct research and contribute to the literature in art education; (3) become knowledgeable about teacher preparation and related areas and contemporary art education theory and practice; and (4) become professionalized through presentations at conferences and through publishing their own research. All doctoral programs in the art education program area focus on research, teaching, and service as preparation for a career in a variety of educational contexts related to art education. Our program is individualized and doctoral students take courses based on their interests and past experiences. We have large faculties in the Schools of Education and Fine Arts, consequently doctoral students may be exposed to varieties of contemporary issues from many diverse points of view. Teacher education, gender and diversity issues, intercultural education, policy issues, and use of multi-media and new technologies are emphasized as part of students' doctoral studies. Clark, Hubbard, and Zimmerman, together with all the other people who have been on the faculty for years, have invested much time and energy, over 80 years of combined commitment for these three alone, to building a strong and personalized art education program. Dr. Lara Lackey has been a faculty member for the past three years. She brings expertise in areas of art and popular culture, arts integration, and informal art settings. In the future, it is hoped that the Art Education Program can attract other new faculty members who will continue to maintain the high quality doctoral program in art education that exists at IU and add their expertise and interests to what has been a tradition for over 35 years.
This article was written by Gilbert Clark, Guy Hubbard, and Enid Zimmerman and appeared as a chapter in In their Own Words: The Development of Doctoral Study in Art Education edited by James Hutchens and published in 2001 by the National Art Education Association, Reston, Virginia (sixteen doctoral programs in the United States and Canada are described in this book). It is updated on a regular basis.