Art Department Community Engaged Teaching Fellowship Fund

The Community Engaged Teaching Fellowship is a two-year program designed by the University of New Haven Art and Design Department in collaboration with the Yale School of Art graduate program. The fellowship equips an outgoing Yale MFA student with mentorship, teaching experience, curriculum development, and service opportunities. The University of New Haven students can take exciting new courses taught by the teaching fellow, who also develops art programming to enhance the department's curriculum, builds community both within the university and with local partners, and helps our department grow and innovate in new and exciting ways.

Our current Community-Engaged Teaching Fellow is Katharen Wiese, an outstanding multidisciplinary artist from Lincoln, NE, who holds a B.F.A. in Studio Art from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln (2018) and an MFA from Yale University (2024). As a teaching fellow she implemented oil painting for the first time in twenty years, organized artist talks with international muralist David Manzanares and Oaxacan print collective Subterraneous, led a Community Engaged Art course, student-led exhibition, and debuted a solo exhibition Hard Leisure in Seton Gallery. She taught at all levels from Visual Thinking to Senior Seminar, leading the current art students in a dynamic thesis exhibition this spring. This fellowship laid the foundation for her future work as an educator. Wiese will be moving west in the coming months as a tenure track assistant professor at the University of Denver.

Please consider donating to this important program that champions the arts, helps build community, and offers students the chance to connect to a dynamic artist at the start of their creative career.