Most professors will ask you to write a paper; Melissa Schulenberg will ask you to make paper.  Chair of the Art and Art History department, Schulenberg admits that she “loves teaching.” Among her courses are Drawing, Beginning Printmaking, Advanced Printmaking, and a senior seminar.

“There’s never a dull moment; there are always new students, and new challenges,” says Schulenberg. The reward in teaching, she says, is the opportunity to work with students beyond one semester, “watching them learn to express themselves.” 

Earlier this year a collection of Associate Professor Schulenberg’s artwork was featured in an exhibition on the Web site of the University of West England.  She was then invited to attend a printmaking conference, sponsored by the university, in Bristol, England.  While there she sat in on a panel concerning printmaking, community and activism.

The conference focused on the worldwide development of printmaking as a medium.  In their letter to participants, the facilitators, Professor Stephen Hoskins and Richard Anderton, said the conference, “will celebrate the international diversity of the discipline, from its roots in industrial communication through traditional, fine-art-based processes, to the current cutting-edge technology and theoretical debates.”

Based on her participation in this discussion, Schulenberg says she has begun to think about how she can incorporate “printmaking and [her] other courses into a larger community than just SLU.”  She added that the faculty plans to “change the requirements for the major and minor” within the next year.

Schulenberg recently completed a screenprint entitled “In the Land of Imagination,” as part of an exchange portfolio, a collection of works by international artists centered around a common theme. In her free time, she enjoys fishing in the summer and hunting in the fall.