M O S A I C S | Spring 2018 

College of Arts and Science 

It’s helping us to connect back to our communities in the state. 

The new School of Visual Studies (SVS) in the College of Arts and 

Science is connecting with citizens across the state through a new outreach project—MU Art on the Move. “MU Art on the Move is a community outreach program where we are providing students with professional opportunities in their hometowns or their home regions,” SVS Director Jo Stealey says. “Their families trust the education of their kids to MU, so we in turn want to take the students back to show their families what they are learning and how their careers are unfolding. At the same time, we are providing students with professional opportunities through exhibitions, lectures, workshops, and symposia.” The school has purchased a trailer for pop-up exhibits and workshops, “a mobile face for our school,” according to Stealey that will put students “a step a head.” She says the school has partnered with MU Extension and Columbia’s Sager Braudis Gallery in its community outreach efforts. Another partner is the Montgomery City Arts Council, which hosted the school’s first outreach event Oct. 5. John Schneider, a graduate student in printmaking and a native of Montgomery City, had the opportunity 

to display his work for a month at the local arts center. Other similar events will be held across the state. MU Art on the Move can be a location for a pop-up exhibit or film showings, it can haul portable equipment for workshops in remote locations, it can be the art hauling-rig for major exhibitions, and it will serve as a mobile advertisement for the school as it travels the state’s highways. “It’s celebrating what our students are doing and helping them to gain this professional experience,” says Stealey, “but it’s also helping us to connect back to our communities in the state so they have a better understanding of what it is we do and the impact that the visual has on our culture.”