If you're passionate about making art and empowering others to create, this is the place to turn your creativity into a lifelong, impactful career. The Art Education program at the University of Kentucky prepares students for careers teaching art in a variety of settings including K12 classrooms, museums, and community art spaces.
With strong foundations in studio art, art history, and teaching theory, our students become well-rounded artists, researchers, and teachers who make a real difference in classrooms and communities. Our nationally accredited program and supportive faculty guide undergraduate students through the process of becoming licensed-certified art teachers in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Coursework ends with an opportunity to implement newly learned skills during a semester of student teaching. Students seeking to deepen their practice can pursue a dual degree in Art Education and Art Studio. Those eager to expand their worldview have access to study abroad and student teaching abroad opportunities.
The Art Education program strives to cultivate a creative community among students that extends to local classrooms as well as state, national, and global professional organizations. Art Education students exhibit their artworks, present at conferences, and gain experience through field observations. Our registered student organization, COLLAGE, engages in service-learning, provides opportunities for student leadership, and promotes camaraderie among art education majors. Graduating with a teaching license opens many doors within and beyond the Bluegrass State. Through robust networking and a rigorous academic focus, students from our program are consistently offered jobs in the field at or before graduation. Art Education majors are engaged in collaboration and critical thinking toward a fulfilling career and lifelong engagement with the arts.
For art educators looking to advance their careers and dive deeper into the field, we offer an online Master of Arts in Art Education (MA AE). The Master of Arts (MA) in Art Education cultivates a community of artist-researcher-teachers who ask critical questions and propose innovative solutions to issues within the field of art education. Considering spaces of visual art learning within and beyond the traditional classroom settings, the program deepens student understanding and implementation of pedagogical practices. Core coursework provides a strong foundation connecting research to creative and teaching practices. With the opportunity to select and pursue areas of specialization, the program is tailored to each student’s expertise and interests to address issues within art education in their own communities of practice and to become involved in creative solutions on the local, national, and international scale.
