Lee Ann Garrison, Director of the Visual Studies in the College of Arts and Science since August 2019, previously held administrative positions at Oregon State University as the Director of the School of Arts and Communications, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee as the Director of Foundations, Associate Chair, and Chair of the Department of Art and Design. She spent the 2013-2014 year as Interim Associate Dean for Innovation and Curricular Design in the UWM Lubar School of Business.

Lee Ann Garrison is a painter and art professor with degrees in painting from the Southern Illinois University, California State University-Long Beach, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who has exhibited her oil paintings in galleries in New York, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Georgia, Oregon and California, and is in over 80 private collections across the US.  At the University of Missouri, she has taught painting and the History of Graphic Design.