John & Betty Michael Autobiographical Lecture Series in Art Education

John and Betty Michael Autobiographical Distinguished Lecturer for 2025-26

About the Speaker

Lisa Kay is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Art Education and Community Arts Practices and Graduate Director of the M.A. in Art Therapy Program, Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University. She is an artist, arts-based researcher, art educator, and art therapist whose creative voice is manifested in and enhanced by the integration of these identities. She considers art, teaching, and therapy as an integral part of her practice.

Dr. Kay is the author of Therapeutic Approaches in Art Education (2020) and co-editor of Restorative Practices in Education through the Arts (2025), both published by Davis Publications. She is also a major contributor in the volume, Art for Children Experiencing Psychological Trauma: A Guide for Art Educators and School-Based Professionals (2018). Dr. Kay’s research and artwork have been published in the Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Art Therapy, Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research, International Journal of Education through Art, International Journal of Education and the Arts, Visual Inquiry: Learning and Teaching Art, Liminalities: A Performance Studies Journal, and Music Therapy Perspectives.

A board-certified art therapist, Kay's research and publications concern the intersections and collaborations between art education and art therapy; resilience and art making with those who have experienced trauma and adversity; narrative art making in healing, and the use of creative arts and visual imagery as both pedagogical and qualitative research methods.

A Distinguished Fellow of the National Art Education Association (NAEA), Lisa has received numerous awards for her work and significant contributions. She is a Fulbright Scholar (2010), the recipient of the NAEA 2014 Women’s Caucus Mary Rouse Award, and the 2016 NAEA, Council on Exceptional Children (CEC), and Kennedy Center Very Special Arts (VSA). She is also a Peter Geisser Special Needs Educator of the Year.

Lisa Kay has exhibited her artwork in the United States and Europe. Her interest in narrative storytelling that encourages personal reflection, self-knowledge, and healing in the context of making art is evidenced in her scholarly publications, in her dedication to art education and art therapy, in her selection of focus for her Fulbright, and in her own art.

• Viktor Lowenfeld
• Edwin Ziegfeld
• Mary Adeline McKibbin
• Victor D’Amico
• Fred Logan
• Natalie Robinson Cole
• Ralph Beelke
• Harold Schultz
• Frank Wachowiak
• Charles D. Gaitskell
• June King McFee
• Al Hurwitz
• Edward Mattil
• Ivan Johnson
• Stanley Czurles
• Edmund Burke Feldman
• John Michael
• Kenneth Lansing
• Laura Chapman
• Eugene Grigsby
• Elliot Eisner
• Jerome Hausman
• George W. Hardiman and Theodore Zernich
• Foster Wygant
• Pearl Greenberg
• Charles M. Dorn
• Ana Mae Barbosa
• Arthur D. Efland
• Georgia C. Collins
• Nancy Parker MacGregor
• Robert Saunders
• Willis Bing Davis
• Maryl Fletcher Dejong
• Marjorie Wilson and Brent Wilson
• Enid D. Zimmerman
• Mary Stokrocki
• Renee Sandell
• Paul Duncum
• Mary Ann Stankiewicz
• Christine Marmé Thompson
• Terry Barrett
• Wanda B. Knight
• B. Stephen Carpenter, II
• Marilyn Galvin Stewart

The John A. and Betty J. Michael Autobiographical Lecture Series in Art Education was initiated by Dr. John Michael with a generous gift from him and his wife, Betty, in 1972, when Edwin Ziegfeld lectured at Miami University. Outstanding educators who have retired or are near retirement are invited to present autobiographical lectures in the series, noting the influences that have shaped their philosophy about art education and the arts. In 1991, John Michael was the featured lecturer himself, adding to the ongoing lineup of influential and honored speakers.