Audrey Bennett Elected as Vice-President of Diversity and Inclusion, College Art Association
Recently, Audrey Bennett, Professor at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan, was elected to serve as the Vice-President of Diversity and Inclusion for the College Art Association. A member of the board of directors, Bennett will represent the membership and the best interests of the CAA to include individuals who reflect core factors of balance and diversity vis-à-vis discipline, subfield, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, and geography.
The second person to hold the role of Vice-President of Diversity and Inclusion, Bennett’s history with the association runs deep. Her work with the organization began in 1996, when she served as a CAA Professional Development Fellow. As her career progressed, Bennett was appointed to the associations’s Inaugural Committee on Design in 2016. In 2018, she was elected to the Board of Directors and in that role was also appointed to serve as a co-Board liaison for the Committee on Diversity.
“My aim is to assist the CAA with its mission to diversify its membership,” said Bennett. “This will require new initiatives that address the disparities in economic resources among visual art professionals.”
Author of the book Engendering Interaction with Images (University of Chicago Press, 2012), Bennett is a graphic design scholar who studies cross-cultural and trans-disciplinary design that make use of images that permeate global culture and impact the way we think and behave. Her current work, funded by the National Science Foundation and Google, investigates the use of interactive aesthetics towards ethnically and intellectually diversifying STEM education, particularly computer science, with indigenous art curricula.
As the preeminent international leadership organization in the visual arts, the College Art Association promotes these arts and their understanding through advocacy, intellectual engagement, and a commitment to the diversity of practices and practitioners.