Board Candidates
2008 CAA Board of Directors Election
Jay Coogan, Rhode Island School of Design
Statement: Change is probably the largest challenge that art and design programs face today. With change thrust upon us and bubbling from within, we need to keep a razorlike focus on the best educational practices for our students. As we are whipsawed by the global economy, we need to invest in thinking about how to deliver an art and design education that is relevant and timely. On top of that, we must walk the tightrope between raising tuition and growing programs to meet expenses while continually worrying about overpricing art and design education.
What role does faculty leadership through CAA play in shaping these issues? What skills, knowledge, and creative abilities do we expect our students to have after graduation? Is traditional discipline-based instruction applicable in an interdisciplinary world? What educational models make the best artists? Should we provide alternative career choices for art students as we help them to develop into artists? Do we need to explore global partnerships to keep art and design education relevant?
When facing questions like these, I find that maintaining our educational standards, or even just slightly improving them, is not necessarily the best answer. We need to learn to relinquish our old ways of thinking and working in order to create a new vocabulary. I believe that CAA is a forum for discussing these issues.
Biography: Jay Coogan has been provost at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) since 2006. Before that, he was associate provost for academic affairs and dean of the Fine Arts Division for eight years. He has also been a professor of sculpture at RISD for more than twenty years.
His broad responsibilities at RISD cover nineteen academic departments and various academic-support areas. He recently oversaw and collaborated with Brown University to create an intercollegiate initiative that allows students to apply for a dual-degree program. Coogan is currently supervising the creation of RISD’s academic strategic plan for 2007–13. Recently he spearheaded the development of his school’s Center for Integrative Technologies, a teaching and professional-development space for 240 graduate students, and its Center for Design and Business.
Coogan received a BA from Brown University in 1980 and an MFA from Hunter College, City University of New York, in 1982. As an artist, he creates sculpture and installations and makes functional objects. His public artwork appears in the cities of Providence, Boston, Cambridge, and Green Bay; he has also completed private commissions for Fidelity Investments, Hasbro, and Zambarano Hospital. Coogan’s work has been shown in numerous national and international museums and galleries and is represented in many corporate and private collections.