Kelly Gross, Ph.D., assistant professor of art and design education in the NIU School of Art and Design has been named the 2025-2026 Higher Education Art Educator of the Year by the Illinois Art Education Association (IAEA). Gross was honored at their annual conference in Schaumburg.
“I sometimes joke that I’m an educator at heart and an art educator second,” Gross said. “I have a long history of working with different populations of students. I’ve always worked in public schools, starting in New Orleans and New York City, and I worked at a charter school in Chicago. The world is a place of right and wrong. You get an answer correct on a test, right? Art is a place of possibilities in which there are multiple right answers, and multiple ways of being and doing.”
Gross says the makeup of the student body at NIU is what drew her back.
“I love the diversity of our student body,” she said. “I love that we are a Hispanic Serving Institution. I have a strong desire to work in urban areas because that’s where my personal history is. We have students coming to us from Chicago and Rockford, and that’s something I feel deeply committed to. Also, part of my reason for wanting to work here is to work with masters and doctoral students. One of the joys at being at NIU is the ability to mentor doctoral students, they’re the next generation.”
Her first doctoral advisee Emma Coker graduated in December. “Emma started with me as a research assistant,” Gross said. “With a grant that I received from the National Arts Education Foundation. I co-chaired her dissertation with Kerry Freedman (professor of art and design education at NIU) and we presented all over the world together. Eva and I presented in Cambridge, England. It’s been a true mentorship, and a joy. I grew so much as a doctoral student under the mentorship of Dr. Freedman, Dr. (Douglas) Boughton, and Dr. (Kryssi) Staikidis, myself, that it was important to me to be able to have that opportunity.”
Gross has been at NIU as a full-time tenure track faculty member since 2020. She earned her Ph.D. in art and design education from NIU in 2017, and has previous higher education teaching experience at Vermont College of Fine Arts, Illinois State University and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
In addition to her Ph.D. from NIU, Gross holds a master of arts in art teacher education from New York University, and a bachelor of fine arts in industrial design from Carnegie Mellon University.
She is especially proud to be honored by IAEA, as she considers their conferences to be an important part of her continuing education in the field, and a chance to demonstrate its importance to her own students.
“I continue to do research and publish at the national and international levels, but I make a point to always attend the Illinois conference,” Gross said. “For the past couple of years I’ve been bringing groups of students, and present with them. These are often undergraduate students, and I get to provide guidance and support as they often present on teaching experiences here in our city and on campus. It’s a good way to encourage a new generation of students to be involved with a professional organization.”
At the 2025 IAEA Conference, Gross and her students gave the presentation, “Finding My Voice” which detailed their experiences establishing and teaching a curriculum on digital art for students involved in the Barb City STEAM Team afterschool program. The program is free for middle school students in DeKalb and presented by NIU STEAM.
“Each semester our art education students develop a series of lessons and offer them every Tuesday and Thursday for several weeks. It is part of my Art and Technology course, and “Finding My Voice” included lessons on podcasting, stop motion, digital photography and others. It’s a way of engaging in digital art technology in a community-based setting. It’s really nice that through this partnership our students get a chance to experience that.”
