Edmund Timothy MooreMFA, is an Emeritus Associate Professor from the Department of Pan African Studies at Kent State University. He has taught courses in Traditional African and African American historic, artistic and cultural experiences throughout the Pan African Diaspora for 37 years. For the last 12 years, he also served as the Associate Dean for Advising and Undergraduate Student Affairs in the College of Arts & Sciences.
Upon graduation as an Art major from Glenville High School in Cleveland Ohio, he became aPrinting Press Operator/Traineewith the AddresographMultigraph Corporation,before he came to Kent State in the fall of 1969. There, hemajored in Graphic Design, now called Visual Communication Design,which blended his artistic and printing expertise. Hereceived a Bachelor of Fine Arts, in 1973, a Master of Arts in 1977, and a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1983.
His research and creative interests concernHierography,the sacred connectionswithin the Communication Continuum. Theserangefrom the spoken word, as well as printed, artistic, and electronic words and images, and their implications for the Media. He has taught and lectured on this topic and his research is concerned with their impact on our thoughts, attitudes and behaviors in society. His other research involvesa working manuscript entitledHumanCentricity,which he has lectured on for more than two decades, as a direct result of what he learned and taught in Pan African Studies.
He has served as a mentor to all students and in more recent years, with a particular focus on African American Males. From2007-2009, he was a Consultant and a Cultural Competency teacher-facilitator with the Governor’s Initiative for Increasing the Graduation Rate, with the Akron High Schools which targeted 9th grade African American Males, toward “Closing the Achievement Gap.”In 2010-11, he was involved with a continuation of this program in the Juvenile Correctional Facilities throughout Ohio.
In 1993, he became the first African American at Kent State, to receive the Alumni Association’s Distinguished Teaching Award. He was selected to Who’s Who, Among American Teachers for 1996 and 1998. He has received numerous recognitions for Outstanding Teachingand the 2006 Distinguished Honors Faculty Award.
In 2009, he received the Service to commission Award for the Liberal Arts Advisors Commission of the National Academic Advising Association and several awards for his contributions to the university at the time of his retirement at the end of 2010.
He has also given numerous lectures, presentations, and workshops on the topics of African and African American stereotypes in the media, and has consulted on issues relating to Human Diversity, as well as Teacher and Employee Training in Cultural Competency,to various community and business organizations throughout the United States. His primary focus has always been the importance of education, especially his “Protecting your GPA”initiative, to students, parents and schools.
Among the courses he taught, the primary ones related to his Hierographic background were, The Symposium on Visual Communications, which became Oral and Visual Awareness. This course taught students the art of calligraphy, and the basics of black and white photography. They were able to take their ideas and photographs that they took and combine them onto visual results that they created themselves. They also studied the basic elements of the African and African American Oral Tradition and of the media, such as spoken and written words, photography, cinematography, television, advertising, etc., and their impact on our thoughts and behavior.
Introduction to the African Arts
KSU students were exposed to all of the traditional forms of artistic, musical and creative cultural expressions of various African cultures, past and present. This course exposed them to the reasons for the existence of the traditional sculptures, masks, music, instruments, dance, poetic and historical/philosophical/spiritual interconnections between the African cultures. There were no other courses like this on the campus. Later, the Art History department started teaching a related course, but the one that was taught in Pan African Studies still exists.
African American Artists
Students learned about the historical and cultural development of the Artistic traditions that were transplanted from Africa to the Americas. The growth and evolutionof the artistic and cultural continuum, as well as the people who kept them alive in the so-called New World. The successes and the obstacles they faced in creating their new forms of expression from the Musico/linguistic Rap Tradition, now called Hip Hop, through painting, sculpture, dance, theatre, and much more. Still being taught in Pan African Studies.
Interpreting the Black Experience, Parts 1 & 2
Provided chronological in-depth exploration and analysis for all students of the historical forces, factors and people that shaped the development of Mankind since our beginnings. Newly discovered factual information reveals the greatness of the African past, leading to internal and external cultural transformations of the traditional African Way of Life. The recorded events and circumstances leading to the creation of the African diaspora and New world enslavement, through to Abolition, and efforts of institution building by various Black communities. These occurred during the periods ofReconstruction/Redemption, the Great Migration up to the Civil Rights/Black Consciousness Movement and the Self Determination momentum up to the present day. These two courses were taught as Honors Courses from 1993, until his retirement in 2010.