Meet Our Faculty: Jessica Curran

Jessica Curran

 

Associate Professor, Graphic Design & Communications

School of Arts, Communication and Media

Visual Art & Design

 

What she teaches:

ART 1120 Design, ART 1135 Printing Fundamentals, ART 1200 InDesign Software, ART 1210 Math for Visual Arts, ART 1280 Photoshop Software, ART 2120 eDesign & Publishing, ART 2200 Advanced InDesign Software

 

Number of years teaching at SLCC:

10

 

Undergraduate:

California University of Pennsylvania.

 

Master’s:

Graphic Communications Technology Management from Kean University

Fine Arts in Media Design from Full Sail University.

Why working at SLCC matters:

I feel a personal responsibility to ensure every student who wants to learn has the opportunity to do so. I think that’s why I enjoy teaching at the community college. I really like that one of our main goals is open access for all and we support that by offering a huge variety of classes, we have campuses all over the Salt Lake valley, we offer online and hybrid modalities, and the college is extremely supportive of our OER (open educational resources) initiatives.

 

Greatest professional challenge:

I decided very early on in my career that I wanted to be a college professor and I knew in order to become one I needed to earn a master’s degree and have significant industry experience. So, my biggest professional challenge was to keep going through years of working full-time and going to grad school full-time and then working full-time and teaching part-time. When you’re in the cycle of teaching part-time at one and then two and then four colleges with the hopes of earning a full-time position there is a lot of uncertainty. Looking back, it was obviously worth the insane hours I was working, but when you’re in the cycle it is hard not to think, “What if a full-time position never becomes available?”

 

Greatest professional accomplishment:

I am really proud of some of the work I have done to support students in the Visual Art & Design department over the last several years. I worked with graphic design faculty to merge graphic communications and graphic design into one specialization area called Graphic Design & Communications. We worked together to create an open access studio at the South City campus for students to work in outside of class that is stocked with industry standard equipment that they can use for free. We aligned our certificates and degrees to create a clear pathway for both transfer and workforce students. Then, as a direct result of our merger, we were able to work with the University of Utah to establish the first ever 2 + 2 transfer articulation between our two art departments. Students can now seamlessly transfer from SLCC to the University of Utah and finish their bachelor’s degree in four total years.

Advice for students or others:

I firmly believe that anyone can accomplish anything if they work hard enough. If you want something, work for it. If you don’t understand something, ask questions. You determine your own fate. You’ll be surprised at how much others want to help you succeed (especially your teachers), but if you don’t set the ball in motion you’ll never get to where you want to be.

 

Future plans:

I want to see the world. My future personal plans are to keep traveling every summer (except this summer, obviously). Professionally, I would like to continue working with my peers to make the Graphic Design & Communications program stronger and stronger whether that is signing additional articulation agreement, updating courses, or publishing new OER content.

 

Hobbies:

I really enjoy going to Real Salt Lake soccer games. I’ve been a season ticket holder for the last five years. I also really like riding my road bike along the Legacy Parkway Trail. I’ve been trying to get better at disc golf lately. I play pinochle with my friends a couple times per month.