The Future of Education

Edition 14

Accepted Abstracts

Integrating Art and Visual Literacy Education within an Innovative Business & Humanities Program at a Canadian University

Teal McAteer, McMaster University (Canada)

Abstract

In response to a need for change in undergraduate business education (Colby, Ehrlich, Sullivan, & Dolle, 2011), this paper describes how Leadership Development is taking a new direction within an innovative curriculum design at a Canadian university’s Integrated Business & Humanities (IBH) program. Students in their initial year of the program and as an early foundational piece of their leadership development journey, visit either a Museum of Art or Art Gallery of their choice and select a piece of art/architecture that has an impact on them or speaks to them in some unique and powerful way. Students prepare a self-reflection that examines how the process of analyzing themselves through the art/architecture is helpful in recognizing healthy and unhealthy thinking patterns, individual needs, motives, likes, dislikes, all of which are useful in their leadership development journey throughout their 12-week course. In a later part of their journey, when students are within their upper year of the program and have acquired a solid knowledge foundation in ethical business practice; in critical thinking and verbal expression; and in business- and social history with a global perspective, they are further challenged to expand and detail these skills and qualities. Students are provided with acute awareness of the impact of the multi-faceted visual environment they will work in, and with the necessary skills of visual literacy to ‘read’, evaluate, manage and produce visual messages adequately in different socio-cultural settings. The importance of creativity that is at play in visual communication is explored, and students are given an opportunity for hands-on experience with the creative process in making art. This experience is facilitated under circumstances that allow students to plumb (or, at least, dip into) their own creative potential – an inner resource whose identification and employment will contribute to their professional success. 

Keywords: Art Education; Visual Literacy; Integrated Business and Humanities Curriculum Development.

References:
[1] Colby, A., Ehrlich, T., Sullivan, B., Dolle, J. (2011). Rethinking undergraduate business education: Liberal learning for the profession. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

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