Rate My Professor Daniel Barney

Daniel T. Barney served as Associate Professor of Art Education in the Department of Art, College of Fine Arts and Communications, at Brigham Young University until his retirement in 2023. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in printmaking with K-12 Art Education certification from Brigham Young University in 1995, a Master of Arts degree in art education from Brigham Young University in 2004, and a PhD in curriculum studies from the University of British Columbia in 2009. Before joining the faculty at BYU, Barney taught high school art for approximately nine years at Timpview High School in Provo, Utah. There, he pioneered a philosophical approach to crafts instruction, emphasizing process, materiality, cultural histories, and student-driven exploration of media such as beads, glasswork, clothing, and jewelry. His high school teaching experience informed his transition to higher education, where he began as an instructor at BYU while completing his doctorate and later advanced to associate professor.

Barney's research specializations include arts-based inquiry, art pedagogy, contemporary art practices that challenge conventional knowing, being, and doing, post-qualitative methodological discourses, literacy in the arts, and visual arts curriculum issues. Notable publications encompass 'Visual Culture in the Art Class: Case Studies' (2006), 'A Study of Dress Through Artistic Inquiry: Provoking Understandings of Artist, Researcher, and Teacher Identities' (2009), 'The Billboard Poetry Project' (2015), 'Inoperative Art Education' (2014, co-authored with N. M. Kalin), 'Hunting for Monsters: Visual Arts Curriculum as Agonistic Inquiry' (2014, co-authored with N. M. Kalin), 'Complexity Thinking Mentorship: An Emergent Pedagogy of Graduate Research Development' (2009, co-authored with N. M. Kalin and R. L. Irwin), and 'A/r/tography as a Pedagogical Strategy: Entering Somewhere in the Middle of Becoming Artist' (2019). He received the Joseph E. White Teaching and Learning Faculty Fellowship for his innovative efforts in enhancing teaching through support services. As a multidisciplinary artist, Barney exhibited works in jewelry, glass, photography, paintings, videos, drawing, and sewn pieces in galleries and museums including Ayden Gallery in Vancouver, Coda Gallery in Park City, and university venues across the US and Canada. Known for his dynamic, committed, and inventive teaching, Barney engaged students collaboratively, set high expectations, and influenced art education regionally and nationally through scholarship, workshops, and projects like the 2012 Billboard Poetry Project.