Art Education

Art education students have numerous opportunities to exercise their skills and talents; pursue their interests; and gain real-world, hands-on experience beyond the classroom.

• Many of our students intern at art museums, teach at summer art camps, exhibit artwork in juried art shows, and participate with student organizations such as Kappa Pi (the Art Honors Fraternity). They are also members of professional art education organizations such as the Art Educators of New Jersey (AENJ) and the National Art Education Association (NAEA).
• Faculty members utilize the varied resources of museums and collections in New York City; Philadelphia; Boston; and Washington, D.C., with field trips and specialized object research.
• Students may also participate in faculty-led study tours to destinations such as Cuba, India, Greece, London, and France — or complete a longer study-abroad academic program.
• Dynamic, student-led organizations like the Rebel Art Movement and Kappa Pi also invite involvement and foster community engagement in the arts on and off campus.
• Over the past few years, many of our students have been recipients of the AENJ College Student Scholarship and have presented at annual AENJ and NAEA conferences. We are also excited that one of our pre-service art teachers was honored with the prestigious NAEA Higher Education Student Achievement Award, which is bestowed to the top student-teachers in the nation.

Field experiences in the sophomore, junior, and senior years offer students unique opportunities to work and teach art classes in actual K–12 New Jersey art classrooms and with local nonprofit arts organizations. The culmination is a full semester of student teaching at both the elementary and secondary levels; there’s also an option to teach abroad.

Highlighting the importance of contemporary teaching practices, our innovative interdisciplinary curriculum weaves together artmaking, art history, aesthetics, and criticism as students gain real-world teaching experience.

You will have an opportunity to take many outstanding art courses in TCNJ’s newly designed studio spaces and also create exciting art lessons that explore social issues and big ideas (e.g., identity and popular culture), artists, diverse art media, and self-expression. As you guide K–12 students to make connections between art and everyday life, they will experience the exciting role art can play in the past, current, and future and begin to better understand themselves, others, and their surroundings. As an art education major, you will graduate with the knowledge and skills necessary for teaching art in K–12 schools.

You’ll also gain the necessary knowledge, skills, and dispositions to be an effective 21st-century teacher. Beginning in your sophomore year, you will take one art education course each semester through the spring of your junior year. The sequencing of courses allows you to build upon your knowledge and experience in each course. You are required to take 12 studio courses, four art history courses, and six art education courses. You will conduct coursework engaging varying populations and participating in diverse field experiences, fulfilling the college’s race and ethnicity civic responsibility requirement.

With a long and storied reputation as New Jersey’s first teacher-training school (and the ninth in the nation), TCNJ has established strong working relationships with school districts and K–12 art teachers who help guide students in their art education journey. Also, with connections to international schools, we offer students the opportunity to student-teach abroad. We understand the importance and potential of arts learning and work toward inspiring future teachers to become art advocates in their communities.

Students create, contemplate, and curate art in our 70,000-square-foot Art and Interactive Multimedia Building. It’s home to drawing, painting, and printmaking studios as well as a wood shop, plaster area, metal fabrication area, ceramics area, digital arts labs and studios, photography studios, and student exhibition spaces. The AIMM Building also houses the TCNJ Art Gallery and Makerspace. View our facilities and venues, and come visit in person.

Our faculty are enthusiastic, seasoned teacher-scholars — noted experts in their fields of research. We thoroughly enjoy sharing our passion for the arts and teaching. One unique initiative at TCNJ, the Mentored Undergraduate Summer Experience (MUSE), offers you the opportunity to collaborate with a faculty member on his or her research.