Faces of Michigan

Janice Paul and her art: Changing lives and communities

Painter and community-based artist Janice C. Paul creates innovative partnerships with communities beyond the University of Michigan. Her efforts have been recognized at the statewide level and with U-M’s 2007 Harold R. Johnson Diversity Service Award.

The award, which was established in 1996 in honor of Johnson, dean emeritus of the School of Social Work, recognizes faculty members who have contributed to the development of a culturally and ethnically diverse campus community. Honorees receive $5,000 to further their personal research, teaching and scholarship activities.

As director of Community Connections at the School of Art and Design, Paul works with faculty and community partners to expand the school’s outreach program. Students enrolled in Paul’s Detroit Connections class work at elementary schools in Detroit, facilitating after-school art classes that focus on integrated arts curricula and public art.

Paul, associate professor of art and of social work, also co-curates the annual Exhibition of Art by Michigan Prisoners, which brings art from about 40 prisons to the Ann Arbor campus. In Paul’s Art Workshops in Prisons class, students facilitate art workshops in juvenile facilities and adult prisons. The class is part of the University’s Prison Creative Arts Project.

“Janie Paul’s personal commitment to diversity has brought about a seismic shift in how a community of creative artists within this University define themselves and their mission as educators," wrote School of Art and Design faculty members Ed West, Georgina Zirbes, and Jim Cogswell, who nominated her.

“What is particularly striking is how many students about to step out into the exciting and somewhat terrifying unknown say, ’I want to thank Janie Paul. Janie, thank you. You changed my life.’”

Paul, who earned an M.A. degree in painting from Hunter College and Ph.D. in art education from New York University, worked as an artist and teacher in New York City before moving to Ann Arbor in 1995. She taught at Parsons School of Design, developed community programs at the Brooklyn Museum Education Department and was an artist-in-residence in the Studio in a School Program.

Excerpted from The University Record and School of Social Work Web site.