check out what our alumni are up to now...

Samantha Messer, Primary Art Educator

bio: "Like most people who love art, I've loved it since I was little. I was fortunate to be able to attend UC and graduated in 2010 with a bachelor's in fine arts, focusing on painting and drawing. I went back to school to graduate with my master's in art education and k-12 licensure in 2015. After graduating, I became a long-term sub before getting a full-time job working at Chase School. The 2017-2018 school year marks my second year as a full-time teacher. Chase is a CPS Arts & Culture school located in Northside. Students at Chase get increased access to visual and performing arts by collaborating with community arts organizations and working with local professional artists. It is an awesome responsibility, and I am looking forward to growing my role as an arts educator in the coming years."

want to get to know more? view Samantha's website here: samanthamesserartist.com

Felix Rodriguez, Student

bio: Felix graduated with a bachelor in fine arts in 2002, from the Nacional School of Visual Arts in Santo Domingo. In 2002, Felix started working as an art teacher at a high school in inner city Santo Domingo. After teaching art for seven years in the Dominican Republic, and aware that the possibilities for higher education in the arts in the country were already exhausted, Felix was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to pursue a Master’s degree in Art education at the University of Cincinnati. In Cincinnati, Felix collaborated with Flavia Bastos in the Art in the Market initiative, a University sponsored project that exposes Cincinnati youth to DAAP’s creative environment. In 2014, Felix was a key player in the development of a partnership with Elementz, a Cincinnati non-profit organization, which allowed the Art in the Market a broader outreach of inner-city youth. From 2012 to 2014 Felix joined ArtWorks Cincinnati summer teaching staff. During this time, he participated in different capacities (Project manager, Teaching assistant, & designer) in the completion of four murals. In 2015 Felix was the recipient of the ArtWorks-School Outfitters Teaching Staff Award.

want to learn more? visit Felix's website here: http://sites.psu.edu/felix/

Samantha Charek, Secondary Art Educator

bio: Samantha graduated from the University of Cincinnati College of DAAP with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and OH pK-12 Visual Art Teaching Licensure in 2005. After graduation she served in South Africa as an Education and Community Resource Volunteer for the U.S. Peace Corps (2005-2007). Upon returning to the U.S. I worked as the first Education Director for Visionaries and Voices (2008-2014), establishing an alternative teacher training program for artists with disabilities known as the Teaching Artist Program or TAP. She graduated with her MA in Art Education from UC in 2016 and currently teaches visual art at Hillsboro High School near her family farm in Highland County, OH."

Karen McGarry, PhD Student & Working Artist

bio: McGarry is a visual artist and arts educator. She earned her BFA from Wayne State University (WSU) in Detroit, MI, in 1986 then moved to Chicago where she earned an MFA and a Minor in Women’s Studies from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) in 1994. Following her graduation, she stayed for a time in Chicago working for Feigen, Inc., a contemporary art gallery in the River North district, before relocating to New York where she taught at The New School University. From there, McGarry moved abroad, living and working in England, Singapore, and Ireland, before returning to the US and settling in Cincinnati where she returned to university to earn a Master’s of Art in Art Education (MAAE) from DAAP in 2011. She then began teaching as a secondary level visual art teacher before moving to the Los Angeles area where she worked as an adjunct at California State University Long Beach (CSULB) and as an adjunct for DAAP as an online educator in art education, as well as teaching secondary visual art and humanities for a school in Arcadia, CA. 2015 brought another move back to Cincinnati, where she resumed her on-campus adjunct work before enrolling in the doctoral program in Educational Studies at CECH in 2017, focusing on blending arts-based research into her work in curriculum instruction and teacher education research. In 2016, McGarry became a studio artist at Brazee Street Studios and continues to use her space as a visual artist and artist researcher.

want to learn more? visit Karen's website here: www.kmcgarted.com