Associate Dean of Fine Arts Jeannie Hulen Named U.S. Fulbright Scholar

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Jeannie Hulen, associate dean of fine arts in Fulbright College.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Jeannie Hulen, associate dean of fine arts in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, has been offered a Fulbright Scholar Award by the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

The Fulbright Scholar Award, given to promote mutual international understanding through the U.S. Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, will support Hulen working in Ghana for the 2018-19 academic year.

Hulen will be teaching ceramics at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and building relationships between the university and select art and industrial suppliers to provide KNUST's ceramics department with materials and equipment it is currently lacking.

Hulen also previously served the University of Arkansas as interim director of the School of Art and chair of the former Department of Art. Hulen joined the University of Arkansas in 2002 as a ceramics assistant professor and is currently an associate professor of ceramics in addition to her administrative duties.

"Jeannie has made a tremendous positive impact on the university, college and school," said Todd Shields, dean of Fulbright College. "She will accomplish wonderful things at KNUST, and the research she completes in Ghana will further enhance the ceramics expertise she already offers our students."

Hulen was instrumental in establishing the School of Art, made possible by a visionary gift from the Walton Family Charitable Foundation in fall 2017. The $120 million gift is the largest ever given to a U.S. university in support or establishment of a school of art. The gift also created the first and only collegiate school of art in the state of Arkansas.

Another major milestone for Hulen was the Windgate Charitable Foundation's gift of $40 million in 2017, to create the forthcoming Windgate Art and Design District in the heart of south Fayetteville.

"The past few years in particular have been so amazing," Hulen said. "The School of Art has and continues to grow so much, and the validation of such tremendous community support underscores the value and need for more graduates with art degrees, and the value of the arts in Northwest Arkansas."

As a ceramics and multimedia sculptor, Hulen's installation work examines issues related to the body, globalism and personal narrative. She has held solo exhibitions in Taiwan, as well as in Houston, Grand Rapids, Michigan; Utica, New York; Kansas City, Missouri; Providence, Rhode Island; and Fayetteville. Hulen has also taken part in exhibitions held in conjunction with the National Council for the Education of Ceramic Arts, was a visiting resident artist at Taiwan National University of the Arts, and was a visiting artist and lecturer at KNUST during the summer of 2016. Hulen holds a B.F.A. from the Kansas City Art Institute (1995), and an M.F.A. from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge (2000).

Throughout her professional career, Hulen has also actively pursued her personal mission to advocate and create educational and artistic opportunities for as many people as possible. It was this mission that lead her to KNUST.

"Thanks to the Fulbright Program, I will spend time in Ghana teaching classes, seeking solutions for the lack of available ceramic materials and developing a student and faculty university exchange program," Hulen said. "I'm so excited for this opportunity."

Hulen described her primary goal at KNUST as sharing her knowledge of ceramics materials, which she believes will be the most useful and practical skills she can give their students and faculty.

"It is necessary for an academic ceramics area to have access to upwards of 150 materials, refined to a pure state, in order for expression and research not to be limited," Hulen said.

The KNUST ceramics program primarily uses recycled, found and raw materials purchased and repurposed from private lands.

Hulen described KNUST as the premiere university art school in Ghana, but said the gap between materials available to U.S. universities and KNUST's access to basic art materials is too wide.

To help find solutions, she is contacting art and industry suppliers as well as working with Samuel Nortey of the KNUST ceramics department to research and analyze local raw materials.

Previously, Hulen has used the Stable Isotope Lab at the U of A to provide detailed, accurate analysis of raw material samples brought back from Ghana using the new Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry technology. The chemical formula results of the sample clays have been shared with Nortey and KNUST, and their joint research will continue during Hulen's stay in Ghana.

"Providing greater access to materials and equipment will not only enhance artistic practice, it will also benefit and potentially expand the ceramics industry at large in Ghana," Hulen said. "I am certain that a fruitful and long lasting exchange will significantly advance each institution. Likewise, I also know that the School of Art will continue its amazing progress while I am in Ghana."

School of Art associate professor Mathew McConnell has been named the new interim director and assistant professor Marty Maxwell Lane has been named the new interim associate director of the school while a search for a permanent director continues.

Hulen will return to the University of Arkansas in June 2019.