Karen Cummings is the Coordinator of Art Education at the University of Missouri-Saint Louis. Her primary responsibilities include the teaching of art education courses and the supervision of pre-service art educators during their student teaching practicum. She holds a joint appointment in the Department of Art and Art History and the Division of Teaching and Learning at UM-Saint Louis.

Prior to her position at UMSL in August of 2006, Cummings taught Art for eleven years at St. Joseph-Ogden High School, a public school located in central Illinois. At the secondary setting, Cummings was responsible for teaching all studio art courses, development and implementation of art curriculum emphasizing the critical inquiry of contemporary popular culture imagery, development of a school-wide visual art curriculum assessing all students in the Illinois Learning Standards in Fine Arts, and development of a graphic design curriculum scheduled for implementation during 2007-2008.

Cummings received her Ph.D. in Art Education from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. She has presented at several national and state conventions on her research regarding adolescents’ attitudes and behaviors in the art classroom. Her most recent publication, A Journey of Change in Visual Culture in the Art Class: Case Studies, introduces readers to the invaluable opportunities that are awarded to adolescents as they engage in critical inquiry of contemporary visual culture imagery.