Excerpt from Emilia’s Major Lecturer Review Committee Assessment, Stamps School of Art & Design, 2022:
Emilia shared a presentation that was informative, well paced and thoughtful structured that gave ample evidence of how she makes outstanding contributions to Stamps on a number of levels. Emilia’s detailed discussion of her teaching included an overview of the wide range of courses she has taught across the undergraduate curriculum, as well as a sense of her class activities, projects, teaching strategies and outcomes. She has designed diverse opportunities for her students to learn about and challenge conventions of art. Emilia has provided her students with a diverse set of learning resources including alternative classrooms where presentation and critique occur on off-campus sites, thus opening their eyes to real life challenges and opportunities of disseminating their work in public.
Though Emilia has quite a bit of experience teaching in the foundation studios, particularly 4D, and has also taught IP, Emilia’s biggest strength is in developing courses that students are very interested in, such as the sequence of animation courses she has developed in collaboration with Heidi Kumao, and in successfully reinventing courses that few other Stamps faculty are interested in teaching but which are crucial to our overall course offerings. In animation courses, she exposes the students to an excellent range of works, in recognition of many languages of animation. She incorporates and exposes students to work that both meets them where they are as well as challenging their expectations, and the student work she presented showed originality, experimentation and growth.
She has overhauled the Social Spaces course which fulfills the engagement requirement for the school; an example of one of the required courses that few faculty are excited to teach because of the inherent challenges of this type of work. Undaunted, she worked with CRLT to create an approach that didn’t replicate the very colonist practices that often shape this type of work; e.g. sending university students out into underserved communities to do some artwork that might have little value for that community or might even cause harm. Instead, she encouraged students to direct their criticality towards our community, and specifically the built environment of Stamps and its lack of accessibility. Unfortunately, many of the interventions the students proposed were not enacted due to issues of fire code, etc, but it's clear that the students dug deep, researched, imagined and dreamt big in this course. It would be to hear more about relationships between students and communities other than their own in practice and how it affects them and their ideas of who they might be as artists/designers.
Another course Emilia specializes in is INTERARTS 150, Live Art Survey, which is required for the BFA in Interarts and also is open to Stamps students, but like Social Spaces there is little interest or expertise amongst most of the Stamps faculty in teaching this course. She worked with CRLT again to make the class more dynamic and interactive, creating an approach that integrates theory and practice, and is supplemented by an ambitious visitors program featuring a diverse array of artists working in the Metro Detroit area. Students in this class present original work at the YES space in Ypsilanti.
Emilia foregrounded her deep commitment to implementation of the DEI mission of the university by making great use of the rich resources of CRLT, and continually works and reworks her own teaching methods in regards inclusion and accessibility. The spectrum and vibrancy of the visiting artists/designers/makers program Emilia has created for our students and the effort she has undertaken to bring them to our community is outstanding. She is a critical member of the teaching faculty and has prepared her students for sophisticated engagement in other courses at Stamps. Like all faculty, she is acutely aware that we find ourselves in a difficult teaching environment post pandemic, but her presentation showed how well she is meeting that moment and how much expertise she has to share with her colleagues.
Emilia has proven that she is an accomplished teacher who imaginatively engages students in our foundation courses, brings fresh energies to crucial but overlooked parts of our program as well as someone who is creating new courses in emerging areas. She is an exceptionally gifted educator and member of the community.
Quotes from student course evaluations:
“Emilia White has been the best studio professor that I’ve had in my three years here. She is a practicing artist and brings her interest in the medium into the classroom. She genuinely cares about the process of of her students work and has emailed me back every single time I’ve followed up with her outside of class. My interest in animation is strongly attributed to the environment that Emilia created in class for her student. Wonderful course!”
“This course was taught extremely well and has made me want to pursue animation even more! I learned so much about so many different styles of animating, and I’m so excited that I now have the tools to continue animating on my own, in other classes or for personal work.”
“Emilia was a great instructor. She was very engaged and accessible.”
“Emilia was very specific in her feedback when it came to our projects which really helped.”
“It was really good in that I understood the assignment goals and what was required of me. I also think Emilia had really great energy for each class which in turn made me eager to learn during the class period.”
“Emilia was a great instructor for this course, she allowed for our own ideas to develop and bounce off our classmate’s ideas in order to improve.”
“One of my favorite classes so far at Michigan & Stamps!”
“Because of this course and Emilia, I have learned that I want to become an animator. She has not only taught us various techniques, but also shared great examples of other animations that have sparked inspiration.”
“Emilia is a very kind and understanding instructor. She is also very open to students’ ideas, views, and feelings.”
“I enjoyed this class content and I would highly recommend this class to peers.”
“I thought that the quality of instruction in this course was fantastic! I really enjoyed being able to explore animation in a safe environment that allowed me to experiment and learn more about the subjects/areas that interested me most in animation. The assignments were set out in a timely manner, and I never felt lost in where/what exactly we had to be during the course. I’m looking forward to continuing exploring animation in the future!”
“This course was a great way for me to further my interest in performance and collaboration in a professional setting, going through iterations and tech rehearsals to make the best product possible. Emilia White is very knowledgeable and understanding.”
“Prof. White was a wonderful instructor. She mixed in a good amount of tutorial, discussion, and work–time to culminate in a classroom space meant for animating. The balance there seemed perfect. I definitely feel like I’ve learned to use the many animation softwares we covered a lot better. I also feel that I’ve upped my skills in story–boarding and pre–planning in order to better my results in the end. This class was a great introduction to animation for any level of skill.”
“The technical knowledge we gained, along with the background readings on animation and the lively in class discussions made this class an absolute joy to take. Prof. White was diligent in giving us individual verbal and written feedback, as well as creating an open and positive environment for group critiques and collaborations.”
“10/10, I would take another course if taught by Emilia”
“Emilia was amazing! An inspiring balance of kind with high expectations. She made me better better and more interested in the craft of animation.”
“I had a great time learning animation with Emilia. Her teachings were really valuable to improving my animations and she gave nice feedback and suggestions on work days. I think that I will likely continue to use what I have learned in this class to make things independently when this class is over.”
“I enjoyed the path our projects took from more structured and constrained to more general and self–directed –– it really helped me both learn more and focus in on my own interests!”
“Emilia is great, you should give her a raise. She knows her stuff and when she’s teaching I learned a lot. Sometimes we watch videos from other instructors and I’m very glad that I choose Emilia’s class. Good balance between in class discussion and work days.”
“I really appreciated your assignment comments, you’re the only professor I have who leaves more than a phrase and I really enjoyed hearing what you had to say. This sounds really sad but covids made on campus life hard, if I was having a bad work day I would read through some of Emilia’s comments on assignments I performed well on as a pick me up. Even when I didn’t perform at an A level, Emilia always had constructive criticism, it’s clear she wants to see students succeed.”
“I just always felt really listened to in this class. It seemed like my ideas were always valued, especially if I needed help, and it was easy to ask for help when I did. I also liked the structure of the class and how we would separate into critique groups when viewing finished projects, feedback was always really helpful and you always told me what needed to change to make my project better, and it was always right!”
“Emilia was an amazing professor! She was very helpful and always willing to explain concepts again. She also gave students the chance to revise their work and gave them pointers. I really enjoyed this class!”
“Emilia always knows how to best treat students with respect in a way that makes me feel so comforted. I know if I’m really having a problem she will listen and come up with a strategy to help me get back to a place where I feel like myself and can actively participate in class discussion and work.”
“ love Emilia. She’s the best,the queen of liveartsurvey. Learned so much various performances which really helped me to think out of the box.”
“Emilia is a very knowledgeable and understanding instructor. This course intimidated me in the beginning, but Emilia helped me work through it so that I could give my best work and get the best grasp possible on the subject material. She has a great appreciation for original creativity, and respects students’ desires to think outside the box.”
“This is the best course at UMich I’ve taken so far! You have been an amazing instructor and I greatly value your input! This course has strongly influenced the way I look at my own work, and will continue to influence me. I’m hoping I’ll be able to access all the material on the canvas somewhere after this class ends.”
“I loved this class.”