Liberal Arts

Phyllis Moore, Ph.D., associate professor and director of the School of Liberal Arts at KCAI, is an award-winning teacher and writer. Her poems and short stories have appeared in The Georgia Review, The Michigan Quarterly Review, The Mississippi Review, Redbook and others. Her work has been listed in both "The Best American Short Stories" and The Pushcart Prize anthologies.

Richard Anderson, Ph.D. a professor in the School of Liberal Arts, teaches cultural anthropology with a focus on art in small-scale societies, comparative aesthetics, American art and vernacular aesthetics, human sexuality, cognitive and psychological anthropology, and language and culture.

He is the author of "Art in Primitive Societies "(1979), "Art in Small-Scale Societies" (1989, second edition), "Calliope's Sisters: A Comparative Study of Philosophies of Art" (1990) and "American Muse: Excursions into Art and Aesthetics (2000) and co-editor of "Art in Small-Scale Societies: Contemporary Readings "(1993), all published by Prentice-Hall. He has written more than 20 professional articles, reviews and paper presentations on the subject of art anthropology and has been a guest lecturer and invited speaker at numerous universities and conferences.

Anderson has received grants from the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies and the National Institutes of General Medical Sciences.

A member of the KCAI faculty since 1974, Anderson holds a bachelor's degree in chemistry from West Virginia University and master's and Ph.D. degrees in cultural anthropology from the University of Minnesota.

Contact: 816-802-3374 or randerson@kcai.edu

Michele Fricke, professor and program head of art history, teaches ancient and renaissance art and the history of textiles and ceramics. A practicing artist, Fricke creates fiber work that has been shown in exhibitions across the country and which is represented in many private collections. She has published in Ceramics Monthly and Fiberarts and is a regular contributor to the Surface Design Journal. She also serves on the editorial board of that journal. Recent publications include reviews of the Chicago exhibition "Material Differences," the 2007 exhibitions of the Surface Design Conference and an article entitled "Dressing Up Death: the Splendor of Fantastical Creatures" for the Surface Design Journal. She has also written an essay entitled "Full Circle" for the exhibition and conference on entrepreneurial textiles sponsored by the Center for Craft, Creativity and Design in North Carolina. She delivered the keynote address at the conference in January, 2009.

Fricke received KCAI's "Excellence in Teaching Award" in 1993. She was the exhibition chair for the Surface Design Association's national conferences held in Kansas City in 2000 and 2003. She curated the exhibition "Material Evidence" for the Reed Whipple Cultural Center in Las Vegas and "Couplets: a Collaboration of Fiber Artists and Poets," shown at the Writer's Place in Kansas City. She has spoken at numerous venues including the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the National Association of Colleges of Art and Design, a lecture series on the history of ceramics at the Red Star Studio in Kansas City and recently at Baylor University on "Fiber Art: The New Dynamism."

Before coming to KCAI in 1988, she taught at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Ill.; St. Mary's College in Notre Dame, Ind.; and the University of Nevada in Las Vegas. At the last two schools, she also served as the director of exhibitions. Fricke earned a B.S. degree in education, an M.A. degreei n art history and an M.F.A. degree in fiber from Northern Illinois University.

Contact: 816-802-3386 or mfricke@kcai.edu

Dr. Milton Katz teaches American studies; art, literature, and film of the Holocaust; and peace and conflict resolution. 

He is the author of "Ban the Bomb: A History of SANE, the Committee for Sane Nuclear Policy," 1957-1985 (Greenwood Press, 1986); and more than two dozen articles, book chapters and reviews on peace and social justice issues in contemporary American history, most recently, "A History of the Kansas City Art Institute: A Century of Excellence and Beyond," 2005; "A Desperate Conversation: Art of the Holocaust," in "Teaching the Shoah in the Twenty - First Century," 2004; "Esther Brown: In Pursuit of Human Rights and Social Justice," in "John Brown to Bob Dole: Movers and Shakers in Kansas History," 2006; and "Breaking Through: John B. McLendon, Basketball Legend and Civil Rights Pioneer" (University of Arkansas Press, 2007). 

He consults, presents conflict management workshops and is a visiting professor at the Institute for Creative Conflict Management at Syracuse University. He worked with the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education in its "Witnesses to the Holocaust" project, is a member of its speakers bureau and serves as its Vice President of Education. He has presented lectures on art of the Holocaust in educational and religious institutions and Holocaust museums throughout the U.S and Europe. 

Dr. Katz has been the recipient of several grants and research awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Missouri Humanities Council, the Mellon Foundation, the Alliance of Independent Colleges of Art, the Kansas City Regional Council for Higher Education, a Fulbright-Hays Grant to study and research art of the Holocaust in Poland and the Czech Republic in the summer of 1996. In 1998, he received the KCAI Special Projects Award, in 2001, the college's Excellence in Teaching Award, and in 2007 the KCAI Distinguished Achievement Award. 

A member of the KCAI faculty since 1974, and chair of the department from 1989 to 2000, Dr. Katz earned a bachelor's degree from Rockford College in Illinois and holds master's and Ph.D. degrees from St. Louis University. 

Contact: 816-802-3373 or

mkatz@kcai.edu

Rush Rankin, who joined the KCAI faculty in 1975, teaches creative writing, fiction, poetry and aesthetic philosophy.

Rankin earned a bachelor's degree from Duke University; an M.A.C.T. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; and an M.F.A. degree from the University of Iowa.

His book of poems, "The Failure of Grief," was published in 2000. Another book, a poetic essay on the philosophy of postmodernism, "The Postmodern Comedy," was published in 1993 by Aldus Press of Massachusetts.

He has published fiction, essays and poetry in magazines in the United States, France and England. His poetry essays and fiction have appeared in Antioch Review, Epoch, Pleiades, New Letters, Poetry Northwest, Paris Review, Stand and Another Chicago Magazine. His poems have been anthologized over the years in The Carnegie Mellon Anthology, Seneca Review Anthology, A to Z, Voices from the Interior and Spud Songs. His poetry was presented in a performance in 1988, titled "GLEE" after one of his poems, at the Theater for the New City, New York. As a tribute to his teaching, he was selected to the National Faculty of the Union of Independent Colleges of Art in 1980.

Rankin's story "Smart Men," which was published by TriQuarterly in 1982, was listed by "Best American Short Stories," 1983, as one of the "distinguished" stories of the year. His essay on the poet Louise Gluck, published in New Letters Review, was selected for inclusion in the anthology "Contemporary Literary Criticism," 1987-88.

A work of aesthetic philosophy, called "In Theory," was published in January 2006 by Xenos Books with the collaboration of Chelsea Editions. Word Press also published Rankin's next collection of poems, called "Pascal's Other Wager," which appeared in December 2006. His book, "Bene-Dictions," selected by Rosanna Warren, won the Vassar Miller Prize and was published by UNT Press in 2003. Rankin's poetry has also been published in magazines in France and England, and in 2005 a translated chapter from "In Theory" appeared in Italy.

Contact: 816-802-3375 or email: rrankin@kcai.edu

Hal Wert, Professor of History at the Kansas City Art Institute teaches the history of World War II, the Cold War and Modern Japanese Literature. He is the author of a number of scholarly articles of which the most recent is "Years of Frustration: Herbert Hoover and W.W.II," in "Uncommon Americans: the Lives and Legacies of Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover" (Greenwood Press, fall 2003). In January 2005 Stackpole Books published "Hoover the Fishing President: Portrait of the Private Man and His Life Outdoors." Forthcoming books include "Hoover, Roosevelt and the Specter of Starvation: American Aid for Europe 1939-41" and "Aiming at the Heart of America: The Relief Posters of World War II." In addition, Dr. Wert has written many book reviews published in the Journal of Military History and the Military Review. In 2006 he was a finalist for the William Rockhill Nelson Award for Literary Excellence, and his book on Hoover was chosen by The Kansas City Star as one of the 100 notable books of the year. He has appeared on C-Span's Book TV series "Public Lives," and in May 2007 he was interviewed on the C-Span Book TV Bus.

Professor Wert has had several travel and research grants from the Hoover, Roosevelt, and Truman Presidential Libraries; three Fulbright/Hays Group Project Awards to Eastern Europe; a Hoover Institution Summer Fellowship at Stanford University; an International Research Exchange Grant (IREX); a Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars grant as well as a Rockefeller Archives Center Research Grant. In 1999 Professor Wert was awarded the Kansas City Art Institute Excellence in Teaching Award and has been named four times to "Who's Who Among America's Teachers," 1994, 1998, 2000 and 2005. In December 2000 he was the recipient of the Missouri Governor's Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Contact: 816-802-3381 or hwert@kcai.edu

Patricia Catto has taught in the School of Liberal Arts for 20 years and has offered a collection of courses dealing with eco- psychological approach to literature. She teaches formal poetry writing centered around forms from the classical world to the contemporary marketplace. She came to Kansas City to provide support writing for early internet venues at Hallmark Cards Inc. and stayed to teach at KCAI.

In the late '90s she added the raks sharki dance element to her poetry classes and went to India to study this form in 2004 and 2006. Her courses in folk literature of the world are her signature courses and reveal a deep interest in the archetypal forms and soul motifs of our species.

In 2001 she began a series of dance/lectures entitled "Veil as Sacred Space" and gave this workshop around the country.

As a guest of Mad Hatter, Catto read from her magical realism novel, "Aunt Pig of Puglia." at the KGB club in New York's East Village in March 2007.

She has taught at SUNY SUCO, Bowling Green State and the University of Kansas. She is included in "Who's Who in American Teachers" and "Who's Who in Americam Women" and has served on the Missouri Arts Council's literature panel.

Her work has been published in Art &Academe, Ceramics Monthly, Wolf Head Quarterly, New Art Examiner, Cafe Solo and Mad Hatter Review. She also has published a book of poems, "Wife of Geronimo's Virile Old Age."

Contact:  816-802-3382 or pcatto@kcai.edu

Steve Cromwell teaches history of photography, history of film, contemporary European art, Latino art of the 20th century, 19th century painting, aesthetics and art criticism, women in contemporary art, modern sculpture and American art since 1945.

Formerly an exhibiting artist, Cromwell's mixed media photographic work has been shown in many solo, invitational, group and juried exhibitions throughout the United States. Solo exhibitions include: Sheldon Memorial Gallery of Art, University of Nebraska in Lincoln; Douglas Drake Gallery, Kansas City; and University of Oregon Museum of Art, Eugene. His photographs have been shown in the "New Photographic" competition exhibition. His works are in the collections of Mulvane Art Center, Mutual Benefit Life; University of Kansas Spooner-Thayner Museum of Art; University of Oklahoma Museum of Art; Denver Museum of Art; Dallas Museum of Fine Arts; and the Cincinnati Museum of Art.

Cromwell has been a visiting artist and lecturer for a number of special programs and colleges as well as a juror of art competitions and organizer of several exhibitions. He has served as photo editor of The Cottonwood Review literary magazine at the University of Kansas, and as editor of Words, a literary magazine at Kendall College. In 1978 he was program chair of the Society of Photographic Education's national conference.

A member of the KCAI faculty since 1972, Cromwell holds bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Kansas.

Contact: 816-802-3385 or scromwell@kcai.edu

Maria Buszek, Ph.D., assistant professor in the School of Liberal Arts, teaches modern and contemporary art. She joined the KCAI faculty in 2002.

Her recent publications include the book "Pin-Up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture" (Duke University Press, 2006); contributions to the anthologies "It's Time for Action, There's No Option" (JRP Ringier, 2007), "Blaze: Discourse on Art, Women, and Feminism" (Cambridge Scholar Press, 2007) and "Contemporary Artists," 5 ed. (St. James Press, 2001); catalogue essays for Gagosian Gallery, Migros Museum of Contemporary Art, and Grand Arts; and articles in such journals as Art in America, Photography Quarterly, Woman's Art Journal, and TDR: The Journal of Performance Studies. She is also a regular contributor to the popular journal BUST and Kansas City's Review. Buszek most recently edited the anthology "Extra/ordinary: Craft culture and contemporary art," relating to the explosion of and meanings behind craft media in the contemporary art world.

Dr. Buszek's scholarship has won and been nominated for awards from the Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association (Emily Toth Book Award), the College Art Association (Charles Rufus Morey Book Award), American Society for Theater Research (Gerald Kahan Scholars's Prize) and New York University and the MIT Press (TDR Student Writing Award).

She is a prolific curator, and has recently curated exhibitions for the Charlotte Street Awards, Greenlease Gallery, Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art and The Cube. She worked on the 2009 traveling exhibition "Raised in Craftivity."

Dr. Buszek earned a bachelor's degree from Creighton University and master's and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Kansas.

Website: http://www.mariabuszek.com

Contact: 816-802-3378 or mbuszek@kcai.edu

Photo: Cortney Andrews (http://www.cortneyandrews.com)

Jan joined the liberal arts faculty at KCAI in 2006, previously working as a lecturer at KCAI and as an adjunct assistant professor at Washburn University in Topeka, Kan.

Jan has taught a wide range of classes at KCAI, including "Asian Art Survey," "Japanese Art Survey," "Japanese Prints," "Spiritual Landscapes in Art," "Baroque Art," "Impressionism and Post-Impressionism," "Abstract Expressionism," "Art of Venice" and "Art of Zen."

She received a B.A. in the history of art and English literature, an M.A. in the history of art and a Ph.D., all from the University of Kansas. Her major area for the Ph.D. was 17th Century Dutch and Flemish paintings and prints, and her minor areas were Venetian Cinquecento painting and Japanese painting of the Edo period. Her dissertation was "Images of the Soldier in 17th Century Dutch Art."

Jan has won numerous awards and fellowships, including the Friends of the Mauritshuis Fellowship associated with the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis in The Hague that allowed her to conduct research in the Netherlands. In 1997, she contributed writings for "Dutch Art: An Encyclopedia," edited by Sheila D. Muller and published by Garland Publishing. More recently, she was a keynote speaker presenting her current area of research on the Christian art of Japan.

Jan is a member of the College Art Association, the Historians of Netherlandish Art and the Association for Asian Studies.

Contact: 816-802-3372 or jkennedy@kcai.edu

Jordan Stempleman is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop where he was a Leggett Schupes Fellow in Poetry. He is the author of six books of poetry: "Their Fields" (Moria, 2005), "What's the Matter" (Otoliths, 2007), "Facings "(Otoliths, 2007), "The Travels" (Otoliths, 2008) "String Parade" (BlazeVOX, 2008) and "Doubled Over" (BlazeVOX, 2009). He is also associate editor of The Continental Review, a video-only forum for contemporary poetry and poetics.

Deborah Dickson has a dozen years of teaching experience and has taught at the Kansas City Art Institute since 1999. She earned her Bachelor of Science in biology and, in 1997, a Master of Arts in art history at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Her thesis, "Modifications and Dynamics in Sacred Senufo Storehouse Shrines," was based on a study abroad program in the Ivory Coast of West Africa.

In the last decade, she has published more than 100 art museum and gallery exhibition reviews in the local publications The Pitch and Review. Her curatorial experience includes curating "Off The Wall," an art exhibition at Arts Incubator benefiting a local nonprofit (2008), "So Near and Yet So Foreign: Sculptures by Cuban artist Rafael Perez" at Fahrenheit Gallery (2000) and co-curated "Simulation: Group Show in Multimedia by Local Artists" at Stocksdale Gallery at William Jewell College (2001). As a co-juror, she selected work for the 2nd Annual Grand Nude Show for the Hobbs Building Art Gallery (2001). As the tour guide for the Hall family collection of African art, she has given multiple talks to many museum groups and private collectors from around the country. She was a member of the selection committee for the Business Arts Awards sponsored by the Metropolitan Arts Council of Kansas City (2004) and was chosen to participate on a four-person panel on "Writing About Art" at the Writer's Place (2001).

Dickson has visited museums and galleries around the world, having traveled to 16 countries on four continents including Europe and the United Kingdom, West Africa, South America, Jamaica and Cuba. Her courses at KCAI include "Western Art I," "Western Art II," "Introduction to Art and Performance of African, Oceanic and New World Cultures," "Introduction to African Art," "Art and Performance of the African Diaspora," "Introduction to the Art of the Americas" and "Clay in Africa and the Americas."

Mara Gibson is originally from Charlottesville, Va., graduated from Bennington College and completed her Ph.D. at SUNY at Buffalo. Additionally, she attended London College of Music, L'Ecole des Beaux Arts in Fontainebleau, France and the International Music Institute at Darmstadt in Germany. She has received grants and honors from the Banff Center, Louisiana Division of the Arts, KC Arts, Meet the Composer, the International Bass Society, ASCAP, the John Henrick Memorial Foundation and had internationally renowned ensembles and soloists perform her music throughout Europe and North and South America. Additionally, Dr. Gibson has taught composition, theory and contemporary music at several universities in Buffalo, N.Y., New Orleans and Kansas City.

Recent performances include The Banff Center, Bowling Green State University, the Hamstead Author's Society in London, Houston Community College, Loyola University, Nebraska Wesleyan University, New Orleans Center for Creative Artists, the Spark Festival in Minneapolis, Tulane University, the University of Miami, Longy School of Music, Stangvik Festival in Trondheim, Norway, Universidad Maimonides in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and, locally in Kansas City, at the Belger Arts Center, the Kansas City Art Institute, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Johnson County Community College and the Conservatory of Music at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Upcoming projects include an a world premiere of "D(u)o" in three movements, a residency with performers in Trondheim, Norway funded through the Trondheim Arts Council, "E:Tip" for solo cello and electronics, and a new work for the group duo Contour, based out of Freiburg, Germany. In 2008-2009, Dr. Gibson will complete these projects while teaching at the Conservatory at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and the Kansas City Art Institute and directing the Conservatory's Community Music and Dance Academy.

Matt Waldschlagel is a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy at the University of Kansas. He holds an M.A. degree in philosophy from Kent State University in Ohio and a B.A. degree in philosophy from the University of New Hampshire. He is the recipient of two prestigious awards for excellence in teaching at the University of Kansas. He teaches courses in ancient Greek philosophy, the philosophy of religion, the philosophy of science and the history of philosophy. His paper, "The Question of the Self-Refuting Character of Protagorean Relativism in the 'Theaetetus'" was published in Auslegung: A Journal of Philosophy in early 2006. He is writing a dissertation in moral philosophy on the ethical issues surrounding apology, forgiveness and revenge.

Reed Anderson, Ph.D., who holds a doctorate in American art from the University of Kansas, has taught a variety of classes since coming to KCAI in 2004, including "The Artist's Role in Society," "History of Prints and Printmaking," "History of Graphic Design," "Symbolist Art" and a seminar on outsider art.

One of Dr. Anderson's areas of specialization is the history of prints and printmaking, which inspired the exhibition and catalog American Etchers Abroad, 1880-1939 (2004). Sponsored by the Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, the exhibition traveled to The Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pa. last summer. Dr. Anderson has also curated two exhibitions devoted to Kansas City artist Arthur Kraft: "The Art and Words of Arthur Kraft" for the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, St. Joseph, Mo. (2002) and "Rediscovering Arthur Kraft" for the Carter Art Center at Penn Valley Community College, Kansas City, Mo. (2003).

Dr. Anderson earned a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Master or Arts degree in art history from the University of Washington, Seattle. His dissertation for the Ph.D. degree is entitled "An Epic of the American Farm: James Chapin and the Marvin Paintings."

Phone: 816-802-3341
email: sanderson@kcai.edu