UAM Art Professor Named Higher Education Educator of the Year

UAM Professor Tom Richard was recognized as the 2018 Higher Education Educator of the Year at the awards ceremony of the Arkansas Art Educators Association Conference on November 1, 2018 in Little Rock, Arkansas. Dr. Peggy Doss, UAM’s Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs said, “Mr. Richard is so very deserving of this award that recognizes his outstanding talent and his distinguished service to the profession. He has long been dedicated to the advancement of art education at the university, in the community and the state.”

 Tom Richard (MFA’93 University at Albany; BFA’88 LSU) is a Professor of Art at the University of Arkansas at Monticello.  In his last two decades of tenure at UAM, he has taught numerous studio art courses, art history courses, and art education courses, has managed a student volunteer in regional schools program, has developed curriculum and managed departmental assessment, has curated numerous visiting artist exhibitions, regional exhibitions, student and solo senior exhibitions, and has organized many student public art projects.  He served on the Arkansas Department of Education sponsored Fine Arts Curriculum Revision Committee in 2014, and has judged numerous K-12 art contests, scholarship programs, and exhibitions throughout the state and the region.

His two dimensional mixed media studio practices address issues of history, making history, identity, and making identity by combining planned acts of painting specific historical references with spontaneous processes and by combining imagery of toys with other “dangerous” imagery.  His work has been included in over 100 national juried and invitational exhibitions including the Heroes exhibition at Central Michigan University, After School Special exhibition at the University Art Museum in Albany, NY, and the Arkansas Arts Council’s Small Works on Paper.  He has had over 50 solo exhibitions at venues including the Arkansas Arts Center, at the Historic Arkansas Museum, at the Arts and Science Center for Southeast Arkansas, at numerous university museums, and at galleries and art centers throughout the United States.