Art education alumnus featured in latest "Movers, Shakers"

Penn State alumnus David Gall (’96 Ph.D. Art Education), associate professor of art education and area coordinator at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, is featured in the latest “Movers, Shakers, Designers, Makers,” the College of Arts and Architecture’s interview series highlighting alumni making an impact across the arts and design disciplines. View the interview teaser here, and full interview here. Gall’s research focuses on the areas of multiculturalism, aesthetics, curriculum design and cultural theory. A Fulbright scholarship allowed him to complete his Ph.D. at Penn State. Through successive India Government Scholarships, he earned an M.F.A. in painting at the MS University of Baroda, and B.F.A. in painting at Visva Bharati University. Gall was previously an assistant professor at Gwen Frostic School of Art at Western Michigan University, and at Cleveland State University. As a practicing artist, Gall’s work has been included in shows of Caribbean art, notably the 1996–97 Caribbean Visions, an exhibition of Caribbean art that toured the United States, and in 1991, L’Espace Carpo, a Caribbean art exhibition in France. Examples of his artwork are in the Thomas Burrell Collection, Chicago, and in the National Art Collection, Barbados. In the interview, Gall discusses the challenges of teaching art remotely. “Virtuality cannot compensate completely for actual, physical presence,” he said. “In visual arts, I put the hierarchy of the eyes above the hands. … That’s a hierarchy that we shouldn’t have, because the hands teach you a whole heap of things that the eyes could not. When you’re touching that material, or feeling that brush on canvas or whatever it is—those require different kinds of thinking processes.” “Movers, Shakers, Designers, Makers” was launched virtually in spring 2020 to give alumni a way to discuss their careers and accomplishments, in a format that could be shared broadly. Previous interviews featured, among others, Architecture alumnus John Hoke III, chief design officer for Nike; Graphic Design alumnus Adam Cohn, vice president of global design for Converse; School of Visual Arts alumnus and ceramic artist Roberto Lugo; and School of Theatre alumnus and social media entrepreneur Mike Karns. All interviews are available at https://arts.psu.edu/aadean/#msdm.