Hey, Everyone!

Hey, Marginalia Readers! My name is Ashley Saunders, and I’m the new Graduate Student Ambassador for the Art Education MAT program! I’m excited to have this opportunity to reach out to the graduate community at Columbia and meet prospective Art Ed. MAT students. I’m entering my second year of the program, and so far, it’s been an awesome journey to teacherhood.

I graduated with my Bachelors degree in Studio Art with a focus on drawing in 2008 from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, IL. In case you’re like, “Where’s that at?” it’s where the Chicago Bears do their summer training camp, about a little more than an hour south of downtown.

After undergrad and before Columbia, I packed up and moved to Washington, DC where I worked for three years as an Office Manager for a private educational counseling firm in Bethesda, Maryland. My work experience provided me with the opportunity to engage with passionate, caring, intelligent, and talented educators from all fields of experience. I enjoyed seeing them work to provide a safe yet challenging learning environment for their students and watching their students respond to their instruction. Around the end of college, I realized I wanted to become a teacher. Spending the time I did at my previous job before studying at Columbia really solidified my desire to teach.

Why did I pick Columbia? Well there were a couple reasons! The first was the K-12 certification. During the application process, I realized that not every MAT program certifies, and the ones that do only offer K-8 or secondary certificates. I really liked the flexibility of a K-12 certificate, since it will allow me to apply to more jobs next year! Another reason why I chose Columbia was the location. Who doesn’t want to study education in downtown Chicago and get field experience in a large urban school district like CPS?

I was able to dive right in during my first year at Columbia. With art shows, projects, and field experiences, I was up to my elbows in the MAT and loving it. I also became the President of the Columbia College Chicago Student Chapter of the National Art Educator Association and Illinois Art Educator Association. That’s a mouthful, I know. For short, we call them the NAEA and IAEA. Everyone in our cohort is a member of these associations, and through these, we go to conferences. Last March, we were in New York City (amazing), and this year we’ll be in Fort Worth,Texas. We do professional development workshops, network, and find the all important job postings on the IAEA website. With that said, I’m really looking forward to this next year at Columbia, and I’m looking forward to hearing from you!