Sandra Bird Synopsis

Sandra Bird, Ph.D. is Professor of Art Education at KSU who teaches art education courses involving intercultural art education and curriculum, and art history courses related to Islamic art.

Annually, her curriculum courses host a service learning partnership with local schools. Over the years, Dr. Bird has won several teaching awards from the KSU College of the Arts (COTA), the Georgia Art Education Association, The Istanbul Center of Atlanta, and the Outstanding Professor Award from COTA in (2013).

Her recent publications include a monograph, Creating a legacy of understanding: The Istanbul Center’s art and essay contest. Bird (2011) edited this collection of essays from various stakeholders in this Southeastern U.S. based contest and then published the work in the Middle East Institute Viewpoints Collection (an electronic monograph publication issuing from the Middle East Institute of American University in Washington).

Bird also wrote several articles within this published edition, having served on the ground floor of the art contest development, facilitation and adjudication. She has also written chapters for other edited books, including “Teaching Islamic Aesthetics” in Jason Tatlock’s (2012) Middle Eastern History and Culture (University of Maryland Press) and “‘Iranian, Go Home’: Adversity and Solidarity in the Iranian Diaspora in America” in Muslims in American Popular Culture, edited by Iraj Omidvar & Anne Richards ( Praeger/Greenwood Press, 2014). Among her several journal articles, Bird has published internationally with “From floating flowers to opening doors” in Sahar El Azhar’s (2011) edition of Crossing Borders: A Transatlantic Collaboration, published in Casablanca by Force Equipement and the Ben M’sik Community Museum and in KSU’s Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective, (2015) with her article, “Intercultural connectivity: Intertwined through Islamic design.” Bird was also interviewed on “Islamic Art” for the Islamic Speaker’s Bureau of Atlanta’s Video Series, “Meeting Your Muslim Neighbor” (produced and aired by the Atlanta Interfaith Broadcasters, Inc.) in 2012.

Bird has received KSU grants including a CETL Scholarship of Faculty Sabbatical Award for Spring 2011, a Tenured Faculty Scholarship/Creative Activity Enhancement award of $15,000 in 2007, and an Incentive Grant Award of $8000 in 2005. Most recently Bird (2016) received a 17,500 KSU Division of Global Affairs Strategic Internationalization Grant, "From Mecca to America: Cross-cultural Exchange in the Art Classroom,” that supports the co-teaching of two Islamic art related courses within the KSU SOAAD program with Dr. Mona Hussein from Alexandria University, Egypt. An exhibition of the resulting works from this project will be displayed in KSU’s Fine Art’s Gallery 2017. Bird will also present this work at the International Society of Education through the Arts at the 2017 World Congress Meeting in Daegu, South Korea in August 2017.