A not-so-new club has arrived at UMD this semester in the form of the Art Education Club. After what the club’s current president, Trinh Tran, described five years of inactivity, the Art Education Club has resumed operations, holding meetings and arranging events.

The busy schedules of many in education fields set up a lack of activity for the club in its previous edition, something the new Art Education Club is looking to avoid. Despite falling out of favor in the past, Tran feels that the club is a vital resource for Art Education and education majors.

The club has had to start from scratch in many ways, no longer holding its previously used TCF account. According to Tran, inactivity left the account and many other resources for the club closed, canceled or unavailable. There’s plenty of hope, however, as Tran explained the process of recovering some of the club’s old materials.

“I had to do some nit-picking and dusting off on stuff,” Tran explained, “figuring out what we have left in the classroom where we used to store all our things.”

In terms of leadership, the club will operate different than most. Instead of an annual vote to assign new leadership, the Art Education Club votes in a new executive board every semester. Tran explained this is largely due to the drastic changes in availability many education majors can find themselves in.

“As we go on into the next semester of classes, it changes our availability,” Tran continued. “So for myself, next semester I will be student teaching, so I can’t serve as president.”

One misconception the club hopes to work out is that only Art Education majors can be part of their activities. While those looking to teach art are more than welcome, any person hoping to incorporate art in learning environments can be a part of the club.  

“A lot of people get hesitant about wanting to join because they’re not our education majors, but our club is for people who want to use art in their education,” Tran explained. “There is a friend of mine who is actually a social studies content area teacher, or educator. She wanted to join the club, because she wants to put art in her content. Like how do I put art in social studies?”

There is in fact no major restriction or any other form of educational requirement for joining the Art Education Club. 

As Tran put it, “if you want to use art with youth, that’s my goal. Everyone is an artist, and so anyone who wants to come to the club doesn’t have to know how to make the perfect tree.”

The club takes part in several events in Duluth and across Minnesota, including a conference held by Art Educators of Minnesota annually in Mankato in the fall and a local ginger bread making workshop held at the Nordic Center in Duluth.

Members, according to Tran, also make their own buttons to sell in addition to t-shirts as part of the club’s funding.

The Art Education Club meets bi-weekly, with their next meeting on Nov. 12 and are on Tuesdays from 5-6 p.m. in Humanities 331.