For a program built on courses formally introduced less than a year ago, Shenandoah University’s Bachelor of Arts in art and design is more than growing – it’s creating art internationally.
Art & Global Virtual Learning
Part of the Introduction to Sculpture and 3D Art course taught by Program Director and Assistant Professor of Art & Design Abigail Gómez, M.F.A., in Spring 2026 included a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) project with film production students at Yarmouk University in Jordan. “Our students all kind of understand and can speak the common language of art and design, which has been really, really helpful,” Gomez said.
Students spent about a month on the project and used a variety of methods to create figures – a hot-air balloon and a white-collared dove – for a stop-motion animation film. One of the Shenandoah students, Hannah Bonheur ’28 – a public health major who is minoring in studio art – also took the photographs required for the stop-motion process. Yarmouk, where the term ends about a month after Shenandoah’s – is handling post-production, sound engineering, storytelling, visual effects, and music, Gomez said.
“I’ve never really worked so directly with people from another country before, so that has been extremely interesting,” said art and design major Madelyn Bromley ’29. She spoke as she built her version of the dove, which is a species found in both the United States and Jordan. She made the figure from wire, painter’s tape and paper mache after drawing a simple sketch of how its wire armature would work.
Bonheur sat close by, contemplating using yarn instead of paper mache for the hot-air balloon’s basket. The class, Bonheur said, helped her further develop her hand-building skills (another project required students to create hand-crafted monsters.) She said she also appreciated the input of the Yarmouk students.
“It’s definitely interesting to see their perspective on our project,” she said. “And I do enjoy collaborating with them because obviously they have very different ideas and they’re very creative with this whole project, which has been really helpful because I think we were struggling at the beginning with ideas.”
As art and design major Katie Dooley ’28 stood on the other side of a table from Bonheur, she inspected her part of the project – the balloon itself, which she formed from paper mache over an inflated rubber balloon. She anticipated she’d need to apply four layers of paper mache before painting the U.S. and Jordanian flags on either side of the hardened surface.
Going Further
“We’re hoping that the final product is something that can be used and shared and shown as sort of an example of thinking further outside the box as far as what we can do with visual arts and virtual exchange,” Gomez said.
While the program’s Introduction to Printmaking and Mixed Media course didn’t feature an international element, it required students to expand their thinking in alternate ways. Gomez, who is a mixed media artist, called upon her students to carve and print from linoleum blocks and Tetra Pak; make etchings, screen prints, collages (taking inspiration from the work of Shenandoah Director of Libraries Andy Kulp, whose work they viewed as it was exhibited at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley in Winchester) and books; and to work for the entirety of the term on a textured painting incorporating a polymer clay element.
Thinking Differently
Lisa Kilmer, a media and communication major and art minor who also works in the university’s Division of Physical Therapy, said her art courses provide her with a great deal of insight on how to approach storytelling and creating visual interest, especially in the realm of marketing. “They’re teaching me to color outside the box, which I never did as a child. I’m just learning to think differently,” said Kilmer, who hopes to continue her studies in Shenandoah’s newly launched Master of Arts in strategic narrative communication program after she completes her bachelor’s program.
Allee Coffman ’28, an art and design major, echoed Kilmer. “You have to think in a different way because there are limitations when you’re mixing media,” she said as she described some of the elements of her textured painting, which depicts a nighttime landscape around her Harrisonburg, Virginia-area home. “I just really wanted to capture what it looks like when you look out on a dark night and how there is still light,” she said before noting that she created the mountains from joint compound, a tree from tissue paper, and a large, bright butterfly from polymer clay.
Adding Layers
Coffman plans to focus on what is being developed as the major’s latest pathway: art education. Gomez said a proposal for the concentration has been submitted to the Virginia Department of Education. Students are showing a great deal of interest in the educational pathway, she said, adding that there is a shortage of art teachers in both Virginia and nationwide.
Existing pathways in the art and design major include studio art, graphic art and digital design, and pre-art therapy, Gomez said. The program’s continued growth will be apparent in the fall, with a new, standalone ceramics course offered, and more classes on the way, such as a sculpture course that doesn’t involve ceramics, as well as standalone printmaking and mixed media courses.
The program’s future is bound, truly, only by the limits of its imagination.
