There is a crisis in our educational system today. This talk from the 2015 NCECA Conference in Providence, RI, is about how clay has the potential to address this crisis. When ceramics is taught from both a philosophical and interdisciplinary perspective it has unlimited pedagogical applications. This talk addressed how clay can inform the way we teach.

Chris Staley is a Distinguished Professor of the Ceramic Arts at Penn State University.  He was recently selected to be the Penn State Laureate for 2012-2013. In 1977, Chris was rejected to all, the graduate MFA program’s he applied to. However, after attending the Kansas City Art Institute for a year as a special student, he went on to earn his MFA from Alfred University. He has traveled extensively as a visiting artist from Bezalel Academy in Israel to Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Maine. He has received two National Endowment of the Arts grants and two Pennsylvania Council of the Arts Grants. His work is in many collections, including the Smithsonian Institution’s Renwick Gallery of the National Museum of Art, and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London as well as friend’s cupboards. He has served on the Board of Directors at the Archie Bray Foundation, in Helena, Montana and on the Board of Trustees at The Haystack Mountain School of Crafts.