Some cool lookin’ art educators!

Hey there! In my last post, I talked about the IAEA (Illinois Art Education Association), the NAEA (National Art Education Association), and our Columbia College Student Chapter. I thought I would take a minute to tell you more about what we’re doing this year, what we’ve done, and how awesome it is.

Columbia’s  NAEA/IAEA Student Chapter is off to a strong start this school year with one successful fundraiser already under our belts before classes even start! On August 19^th, we held our first off-campus fundraiser at Bottle and Bottega, a wine and painting studio here in Chicago. Over fifty guests were invited to enjoy their choice of wine while working on their very own acrylic painting. They were also able to place their bids on some great gift baskets in our silent auction. Auction items included everything from coach sunglasses, boat tours of our fair city, and tickets to baseball games! Thanks to a strong turnout and the hard work (read fundraising our butts off and calling businesses for donations) of our team, we were able to exceed our fundraising goal.

Our student chapter consists of students from diverse experiences. Some of us are coming from business or design backgrounds, some of us are established teachers, some of us are gaining valuable museum education experience, and the rest of us are a little bit of everything and the kitchen sink! What binds us together is our love of art and our love of teaching. Our student chapter at Columbia is comprised of hard working, quick thinking, and extraordinarily talented art educators. We try to soak up every opportunity we have in order to be the best new teachers we can be for our future students.

This year, we will be adding thirteen new members with the incoming class of art educators. Under my direction as the current president and the direction of Kim Tracz, our current vice president, our organization is planning to host a number of fundraising events this year to help pay our way to the state and national conventions that we love attending so much. Some of our favorite parts of these conventions include:

1. Networking! We love to meet current art educators and members of other student chapters from across the country!
2. Workshops, workshops, workshops.
3. Free art samples. This is how I fell in love with Crayola Model Magic!
4. Art educator bonding time. We love each other.
5. Hearing the life stories of living, successful artists straight from their own mouths. Chuck Close, anyone?
6. Experiencing different cities. NYC was amazing. Fort Worth, here we come!
7. Decorative name tags… some of us got carried away.
8. Discounted art book sales.
9. Making connections with local art educators. Some of us found our student teaching placements at the state conference!
10. Listening to experts on how to infuse the arts into the general curriculum.

We couldn’t be more excited to start this school year off, and we are looking forward to this year’s state and national conferences!