As Editor of Influential Journal, UC Art Educator Seeks Creative Impact

UC's Flavia Bastos is set to become the editor of her field's most prestigious and influential journal. That leadership role will provide her an opportunity to redraw the lines and future of art education around the world.

The line between research and practice, between serving as a teacher and receiving as a learner, is a fluid one. That's what the University of Cincinnati's Flavia Bastos expects to find as she assumes leadership of the world's most prestigious and influential academic/professional journal in her field, the Journal of Art Education.
Moses Dobbs and Flavia Bastos
Flavia Bastos, right, working with local high schooler Moses Dobbs as part of a community-art project.

Bastos, associate professor of art education in UC's internationally recognized College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning, assumes her role as editor this month, building upon her previous role as the journal's associate editor over the past two years. Serving as her editorial assistant will be Kristine Donnelly, a UC graduate student pursuing master's degrees in both fine art and art education.

Said Bastos, "It was an honor to be asked to fill the role of editor. I was happily surprised and just as happily accepted the responsibility. I know there will be a steep learning curve on a very public project, but it's important to me to further and support the impact of art in education at all levels and to fit ideas together in a meaningful way for our audience."
Flavia Bastos
Flavia Bastos


Bastos anticipates that her new role - in which she'll first serve as editor of the edition due out in January 2009 - will help her to both learn and teach in new ways as she interacts with a global audience of art education researchers and practitioners.

"Even my role as associate editor has already changed me as a teacher. I'm now much more demanding of students' written work. Writing is thinking, and I challenge them to think clearly and thoroughly and to then articulate precisely. And because of challenging students to do so, I'm much more pleased with the quality of their work and how they are synthesizing and integrating ideas. Overall, I'm already a better teacher because of the journal, and they are better students."

That is precisely her goal for the journal's worldwide audience. Already, Bastos is planning themed issues related to multiculturalism and economic issues affecting art education. Involved in leading a number of community-based art projects, Bastos wants to explore art opportunities for youth in urban settings.

"Most of all," she said, "I want to use the journal to articulate the benefits of art education in a way that teachers can carry away with them and use within their own individual settings so that art and art education obtain a share of the scare resources available in many school settings. I will explore how to simply and effectively advocate for the arts."