Board Candidates
2008 CAA Board of Directors Election
Robert W. Milnes, University of North Texas
Statement: Today’s graduates in art, art education, art history, and design have significantly better life opportunities than I did at graduation. People schooled in creating art and design—not to mention those who research their histories, cultural roles, and pedagogy—have never had more varied communities interested in and supporting their creative and scholarly endeavors. But we may not be exploring these avenues as well as we might in our programs and conferences. CAA needs to expand its vision and support of future career paths for those in the visual arts, to work with those achieving transition in and to new fields, and to envision new models of practice, study, and teaching within the academic environments in which so many of us learn and work. I would like to help with that.
Biography: Robert W. Milnes is dean of the College of Visual Arts and Design at the University of North Texas in Denton. A sculptor and ceramist, he previously served as director of the School of Art and Design at San Jose State University, as director of the School of Art at Louisiana State University, and as chair of the Art Department and professor of ceramics at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania.
Milnes holds a PhD in higher-education administration from the University of Pittsburgh (1987), an MFA in ceramics from the University of Washington (1974), and a BA in philosophy and fine arts from Claremont McKenna College (1970). His artwork has been included in more than 165 exhibitions nationally, including twenty-six solo or two-person shows. His art is also represented in the collections of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Arizona State University, the Seattle Arts Commission, the San Jose Museum of Art, and the Erie Art Museum, and in numerous private collections.
A member of the board of directors for the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD) from 2000 to 2005, Milnes served as vice president of that organization in 2002–5 and as a member of its Accreditation Commission in 1991–97. Since 1990, he has worked as a consultant or evaluator for thirty-seven universities, colleges, and independent schools of art, chairing twenty-four accreditation teams for NASAD. He is also past president of the National Council of Art Administrators and of the Arts Council/Silicon Valley. A senior fellow of the American Leadership Forum/Silicon Valley in 2007, Milnes was selected to serve on the KERA Public Broadcasting community-advisory board in Dallas and was honored by the Texas/Oklahoma Chapter of the International Interior Design Association for his work in design leadership, education, and civic affairs.