Instructors
Professor, Douglas (Jack) Sprague
Educational Director, The Smart Center
Professor Emeritus, University of North Texas
With a bachelor’s degree in Art and Design Education and a master’s degree in Communication Design, Jack Sprague has 35 years as a practicing artist, designer, art director and educator. He served as the Coordinator of Visual Communications at the Art Institute of Dallas from 1979-1988 and has been Professor of Communication Design at the University of North Texas since 1990 where he served as the area coordinator for fourteen years. In addition to teaching, Sprague has worked as a graphic designer and art director in both Dallas and NYC and has had his own design business since 1985 working for a diverse array of clients from real estate, architecture firms, corporate branding and communications, banking, fashion and retail to service, social and charitable organizations.
As an artist, Sprague has extensive drawing, painting, sculpture and photography experience and has exhibited his work in Texas, New York, Santa Fe, Los Angeles, Berlin, London and Beijing. His work is collected by a wide array of art enthusiasts. During the fall of East Germany and the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, Sprague lived in Berlin and documented this historical event.
In 2008 Sprague received the Golden Orchard Award for Lifetime Achievement in Design Education from the Dallas Society of Visual Communications, America’s largest professional organization of art directors, designers, commercial photographers, illustrators, copywriters and information designers.
Paul Booth
Assistant Professor, Fort Lewis College, Durango, CO
Paul Booth received his MFA from the University of North Texas in Communication Design in 2004, and a BFA from Texas Tech University in Graphic Design. After working several years for large Dallas design firms, Mr. Booth opened Paul Booth Designs, which he continues to own and operate in Durango, CO. He currently teaches at Fort Lewis College after teaching at Central Washington University. He has presented papers in Texas, Italy and the United Kingdom, and has been published by PRINT Magazine. His design efforts currently focus on environmental issues.
Rebecca Davis-Kelly
Instructor
Rebecca Davis-Kelly is a former graduate student at the University of North Texas and is currently an assistant professor of graphic design at Mississippi State University and partners in a small graphic design studio working on such as clients as Frito-Lay, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Campbell’s, Hasbro Toys and Southwest Airlines. Her research agenda involves advocating for the ethics and responsibilities of graphic designers, and is also concerned with the level of corporate involvement in our everyday lives. With all of those agendas combined, (and quoting one of her favorite professors) it is her mission to prove to the world that graphic designers can do more than sell toothpaste.
Karen Dorff
Lecturer in the Communication Design Program of the Design Department, College of Visual Arts + Design, The University of North Texas
Karen Dorff has over 20 years of design experience in both corporate and design studio environments. She has taught for seven years and holds a bachelor¹s degree in fine art from the University of North Texas.
Karen has won design awards in PRINT magazine, Neenah Paper Promotions, The Black Book AR100, Dallas IABC Bronze Quill, LACP Annual Report Competition, Dallas Society of Visual Communicators, Dallas Tops Awards competitions as well as CASE, The Council for the Advancement and Support of Education.
Her personal work expresses her ability and conviction that traditional, nuanced hand crafted illustration and graphic images can be produced in a way that maintains a traditional look using contemporary software technology. She has extensive experience at teaching artists and designers how to use computer software to create powerful images yet avoid making these images look overtly mechanical or sterile in form.
Betsy Ehrenberg
Instructor
Betsy Ehrenberg is a serial entrepreneur and uses her business, engineering and art passions to establish high-tech companies and non-profit organizations. After successful careers with IBM and Hewlett-Packard, she founded, ran and sold system software companies in Silicon Valley and Santa Fe, NM. Starting in 2001, she organized artists and collectors, galleries and dealers in two geographic areas to increase their appreciation of contemporary studio glass art. Betsy currently runs the Glass Alliance – New Mexico, a non-profit organization and brings maestro artists and experienced collectors and dealers to Santa Fe to learn new skills and to purchase sculptures; this organization also supports several self-sustaining educational programs in the Southwest.
Mike Estes
Instructor
With a degree in computer engineering, Mike has 25 years experience in management, consulting, corporate training, and team building and working with and supporting creative artists. Serving as the Operations Director of The Smart Center and one of the centers instructors, he brings a special insight to areas where technology converges with and supports innovation and creative thinking. He has spent much of his career in the consulting industry designing system development and implementation methodologies with special considerations to organizational change. He demonstrates strong programming skills in the instruction of multi-media presentation development, Flash programming, Photoshop, Illustrator other key applications used by artists and graphic designers as they develop, organize and record their ideas. He is gifted with the ability to simplify and explain complex technologies into terms that many non-technical artists can understand and apply to their own work.
Wayne Geyer
Instructor - Creative Director/Copywriter/Comedian
Wayne Geyer is a copywriter, brand developer, strategic thinker and creative problem-solver. Since 1993, he has helped all kinds of clients — including Dr Pepper, American Airlines, Motorola, the American Heart Association and the Dallas Cowboys — connect with audiences. His work has been recognized in the One Show for Design, the ADDYs, and in every major US creative publication.
Wayne is an adjunct at the University of North Texas and at Southern Methodist University. He conducts writing workshops for students and marketing professionals. He contributes to industry magazines and blogs, and he is a regular presenter at creative conferences — including the HOW Design Conference.
Michael Gibson
Associate Professor - University of North Texas
Michael Gibson teaches communication design studio courses, as well as design research, criticism, history, theory and interactive media at the UNT College of Visual Arts and Design in Denton, Texas. His professional and scholarly work has allowed him to navigate between the demands of practice and the need to account for how the results of design processes affect and are affected by a broad spectrum of social, technological, economic and political issues. His research has addressed issues in education, implementing and maintaining sustainable environmental policies, children’s and women’s health, and developing usable and useful user experiences in dynamic media.
Juanluis Gonzalez
Artist & Instructor
Artist Juanluis Gonzalez has been creating art for thirty years exploring a wide variety of mediums, genres and techniques including painting, printmaking and sculpting. Acquainted with many artists in various countries, Juanluis has collaborated and experienced art in many artist studios. Juanluis founded The Society for the Advancement of Contemporary Arts in 2000, which focused on introducing new and experimental art to the public’s eye. Currently Juanluis casually studies theories of physics, further piquing his interest in how the world works and how elements of science and physics can be incorporated into his artwork. He currently has a studio in Texas and in Mexico and is working on Commissions in Germany, Mexico and the US.
Eric Ligon
Associate Professor - University of North Texas
Eric Ligon is the program coordinator for the communication design program at the University of North Texas, in which he teaches the full array of courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. He and his teaching colleague and business partner, Keith Owens, have branded/rebranded and designed the identities for The University of North Texas System, the University of North Texas (UNT), The University of North Texas Dallas, The new College of Law at UNT Dallas, the UNT Health Science Center, and the City of Anna, Texas. Ligon is also the president and cofounder of BrailleInk, a non-profit organization that produces dual-use, braille and print children's books in his patented format that encourages sighted and blind individuals to share reading time.
Meta Newhouse
Assistant Professor of Graphic Design - Montana State University
Formerly creative director at GroupBaronet — a full service design and advertising boutique in Dallas, Texas — has been in charge of award-winning work for a myriad of clients such as Blockbuster Video, Dallas County Community Colleges, The Dallas Symphony, Motorola, the Susan G Komen Foundation and the American Heart Association.
Recognized nationally for both design and filmmaking, you’ve seen her work in over 10 design-books and 20+ annuals. This June, her poster concept “Empty Calories” for the Good 50x70 Social Communication Project was selected from over 2800 entries to exhibit in Milan at the Triennale Design Museum. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor teaching Graphic Design at Montana State University, in the beautiful mountain town of Bozeman.
Michael Newhouse
Instructor - Owner, Newhouse Design
Michael Newhouse is a principal of Newhouse Design, an information design studio in Bozeman Montana. Since 1997 he has led creative workshops and is a frequent guest lecturer on topics such as quickfire creative strategies and self-promotion for the fine artist and graphic design student. He currently teaches a class in Beginning Web Design at Montana State University. His interests include vintage typography and ephemera, information graphics and maps. Clients include Boy Scouts of America, American Airlines, and Men’s Journal, Brides, Outside, Bon Appétit, Runners World and GOOD Magazine.
Keith Owens
Associate Professor - University of North Texas
Keith Owens is an associate professor teaching in the University of North Texas College of Visual Arts and Design. With colleague Eric Ligon, Owens has co-lead efforts to brand or rebrand The University of North Texas System, the University of North Texas (UNT), The University of North Texas Dallas, the new College of Law at UNT Dallas, the UNT Health Science Center, and the City of Anna, Texas. In addition to his teaching and professional activities, Owens speaks and writes extensively about design responsibility. As a design volunteer for Partners of the Americas, Owens has operationalized his activist philosophy by providing in-country support for farm cooperatives in Haiti. Professor Owens has also taught at Texas Tech University and worked as a design firm owner and director in Dallas and San Francisco.
Burt Peachy
Professor
Play-write, author, actor and musician Bert Peachy has extensive experience teaching and training for acting, performance and presentation in a broad array of creative and business communities. He has written and produced several plays, operas, musicials and has directed numerous theater companies in California, Texas and Washington. He has just recently taken his most recent book titled “Heartland” a story about our forefathers pioneering and settling central America and has converted this rich story into an American Opera and Musical that is currently in production and in 2008 this opera was honored by the Disney Foundation.
He founded the Southern California Conservatory Theater, the California Shakespeare Festival and directed the Performing Arts School in Los Angeles and he was the Dean of Fine and Performing Arts Department at Santa Ana College, Orange County California.
Eddie Sarfaty
Comedian, Author
Eddie Sarfaty has appeared on The Today Show, Comedy Central's Premium Blend, Logo’s Wisecrack, The Joy Behar Show, and is one of the subjects of the documentary, Laughing Matters.
He appears at clubs, on college campuses, and on cruise ships. He’s been featured at the prestigious Just for Laughs Festival in Montreal and The Toyota Comedy Festival in New York and has written material for comedienne Judy Gold and the Divine Bette Midler.
Eddie is the author of Mental: Funny in the Head (Kensington Books, July 2009), a collection of comic essays currently in its third printing, which was the featured selection of the Insight Out Book Club, a division of Bookspan, for the month of its release. He is a frequent contributor to Metrosource, Out, and LA Confidential magazines and is currently collaborating on a screenplay with fellow-comedian Bob Smith about the effects of sudden fame and Red Bull on a frumpy housewife from Buffalo.
Eddie’s essays have been included in the anthologies When I Knew and I’m Not the Biggest Bitch in this Relationship, as well as in the forthcoming The Other Man. In 2008, his short story, “Second-Guessing Grandma," was adapted for the screen. Starring Tony nominee Kathleen Chalfant, “Grandma” has been shown at film festivals across the US (as well as in Europe and South America), has won several jury prizes and audience-choice awards, and has been seen by over three hundred and fifty thousand viewers on YouTube.
In addition to conducting stand-up workshops at theaters around the country, Eddie is on the faculty of The Theatre Lab in Washington, DC and New York University where he teaches courses in comedy writing and performance
Joan Secrest
Instructor - Project Specialist
Joan Secrest is a consultant, writer, editor and project specialist whose 35-plus years of experience include corporate fund and project development, client and investor proposals and prospectus, long range planning, environmental studies, federal grants and fund raising proposals and marketing. She has been vice president of an independent television production company, a corporate, academic and charitable fund-raiser and a managing editor and publisher at The University of Michigan. Ms. Secrest is an experienced teacher, holds a Masters in English and is currently an independent consulting editor.
Arma Shahidi
Instructor
This Persian born American graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of North Texas with a BFA in Communication Design. Currently she is principal of a Graphic design studio, Armaiti Design Boutique, concentrating on the development of brand identity, advertising, painting and photography. She has exhibited in 30 fine art exhibitions internationally and is an associate professor at Colin County CC Dallas. She has also founded the Fight Oral Cancer Foundation and is the current Ms International America. She has extensive experience with the art of Persian cuisine.
Dr. Chuck Spence
Instructor
Charles Spence PhD served as a college chancellor for twenty five years in Iowa, Florida and California. During those years he was honored as among the most effective college presidents, the highest marketing award, and multiple leadership awards for his creative efforts. He worked as a volunteer in helping symphonies, domestic violence agencies and chambers of commerce do strategic planning.
He has degrees in counseling, psychology and higher education from Michigan State University and did post doctorate work at Harvard and the Claremont Graduate Schools.
He has written extensively on career planning and innovation. Since retiring in 2004, he has been involved in international human rights work as well as working with men who have been sexually abused.
