Rate My Professor Brooke Hofsess

Brooke Hofsess serves as Professor of Art Education and Program Coordinator for the Art Education BFA program in the Department of Art at Appalachian State University. She holds an M.A. from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia. Since joining Appalachian State University in 2013, she has progressed through various roles, including assistant professor, associate professor, and assistant chair for student experience. Her commitments to creative, ecological, and relational pedagogies and methodologies underpin her contributions to teaching, research, service, and leadership in art education.

Hofsess specializes in arts-based educational research and qualitative inquiry, with her artistic practice at the intersection of handmade paper and books, fibers, and alternative photo processes informing innovative approaches to art teacher education. A key project is Ecologies of Girlhood, an intergenerational and interdisciplinary community arts initiative that employs material feminisms to reimagine concepts of place and sustainability. Her achievements have garnered institutional and international awards, including the Excellence in Teaching Award from the College of Fine and Applied Arts, Graduate Research Associate Mentoring Program Award from Appalachian State University's Graduate School, Preservice Chapter Sponsor of Excellence from the National Art Education Association, Elliot Eisner Doctoral Research Award in Art Education from the National Art Education Association, Outstanding Dissertation Award from the Arts Based Educational Research special interest group of the American Educational Research Association, National Art Education Foundation Research Award for the collaborative project Exploring Reggio-Inspired Approaches to Mentoring New Art Teachers in an Era of Accountability with Christina Hanawalt, and acceptance into the BRIDGES Academic Leadership Program for Women in Higher Education through UNC Chapel Hill.

Her research appears in journals such as Qualitative Inquiry, International Journal of Education and the Arts, Visual Arts Research, Studies in Art Education, International Journal of Education through Art, Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, Journal of Social Theory in Art Education, Art/Research International, and Art Education. Key publications include the book Unfolding Afterglow: Letters and Conversations on Teacher Renewal (Sense Publishers, 2016), co-editor of the special issue of Qualitative Inquiry titled “Unsettling Traditions: Reimagining the Craft of Phenomenological and Hermeneutic Inquiry,” “Holding Paradox: Activating the Generative (Im)possibility of Art Education Through Provocative Acts of Mentoring With Beginning Art Teachers” (Studies in Art Education, 2020, with Christina Hanawalt), “Curating with Ecologies of Girlhood” (International Journal of Education Through Art, 2019, with Jasmine Ulmer), and “Digressive Methodologies: Inviting the Aesthetic and Material Into the Phenomenological” (Qualitative Inquiry, 2019, with Jaye Johnson Thiel).