TEACHING PORTFOLIO
Teaching Philosophy; Sample Syllabi; List of Courses Taught; Student Outcomes; Peer + Student Reviews.....................................
TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
Of the many truths revealed and reinforced through the recent COVID-19 pandemic and protests for racial justice, I am daily reminded of the power of photography to bear witness, connect community, and critically speak truth to power. As the world finds itself amid great change, so too has the medium of photography been resituated within an uncertain, yet exciting, present. Through the shaping of fabricated and found images, deconstructing hierarchies between canonical and vernacular photographs, and engaging with traditional and emergent technologies, artists are employing a wide range of strategies to critically engage with the dilating character of globalized visual culture. My pedagogical approach enables students to consider the intellectual, aesthetic, and practical implications of this pivotal moment through a dynamic and equitable curriculum that actively connects them to the broader cultural and political conditions shaping our time.
In my classroom, students are challenged to master the craft of image making with deep historical and contextual knowledge. By establishing a firm foundation in current and historical methodologies supported by access to safe, clean facilities outfitted with up-to-date, professional equipment, I provide a platform from which students learn to take risks, develop their voice, and recognize the power of photography to document, reveal, criticize, and provoke change.
From introductory to advanced classes students are connected to contemporary practitioners through a variety of lectures and presentations, visiting artist programs, online conversations, workshops, internships, films, and photobooks.1 To reach beyond traditional studio classroom models, I regularly incorporate topics and readings in literature, poetry, science, history, and journalism as well as experiential coursework through single and long-term creative assignments. Cross-disciplinary study, immersive fieldwork, and community-based research motivates students to consider their role as engaged citizens as they develop partnerships inside and outside the classroom which aim to yield multi-dimensional, mutually beneficial outcomes, foster collaboration, and promote application of theory to “real world” practice.
Carefully structured critical reflection intentionally connects students’ creative work with course content. Critique is facilitated through ongoing conversations, critical reflection writing assignments, and group conversations where students test the strengths and limitations of their work by analyzing, synthesizing, and applying key concepts; integrating new experiences against existing knowledge; developing effective vocabulary and communication skills; and articulating their discoveries in open, constructive dialogue.
Thoughtful support of each individual student is paramount, with careful sensitivity of how student learning is shaped by a variety of intersecting experiences including race, gender, sexual orientation, economic and educational background, ability, age, and/or religious and cultural identities. Supporting diversity and inclusion in the classroom is grounded in the everyday work of establishing and maintaining trust; of acting ethically and always doing what is right; and fostering a classroom community committed to empathy, vulnerability, care, and respect.
Support of diverse student learning also provides critical opportunities to transform codified pedagogies while broadening the established canon that has too long privileged Western colonialist and patriarchal perspectives. Throughout my coursework I fill my lectures and reading assignments with works by artists and authors of diverse backgrounds, identities, and perspectives, and I regularly use flipped classroom methods and visiting artist opportunities to deconstruct traditional classroom hierarchies. By leveraging funding to facilitate equitable access to tools and resources, improved learning outcomes and successes can be achieved by all students.
With the principles of equity, community, and citizenship at the fore, my aim is to open my classroom to a dynamic, transformational exchange that is marked by the success John Henry Newman describes in The Idea of a University: a kind of higher learning that does not cherish “talent, genius, or knowledge, for [her] own sake, but for the sake of her children…with the object of training them to fill their respective posts in life better, and of making them more intelligent, capable, active members of society.”2
1 For further info on how photobooks are used in the classroom, visit: https://usuphoto.com/photobooks.
2 John Henry Newman. The Idea of a University. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1907.
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SAMPLE SYLLABI
ADVANCED PHOTOGRAPHY STUDIO
Utah State University, 2024
Download: Ragland-Advanced Photography Studio-Syllabus.pdf
Combining lecture, seminar, workshop, and studio class styles, Advanced Photography Studio directs students in refining skills for building thoughtful, sustained bodies of work leading to the BFA thesis project. Junior and senior-level students join in a combination of reading, writing, and research exercises, creative projects, group discussions, critical reflection and group critiques.
THE COMPASSIONATE IMAGE: SOCIALLY-ENGAGED VISUAL STORYTELLING
University of South Florida Judy Genshaft Honors College, 2020
Honors Capstone credit course certified by the USF Honors College for “Integrative & Applied Learning: High Impact Practice.”
Download: IDH 4950_005_Ragland.pdf
The Compassionate Image: Socially-Engaged Visual Storytelling was a visual arts-based interdisciplinary honor's capstone course focused on the crafting and critical understanding of photographic images in context of urban planning, ethnographic studies, and the local Tampa community. The class was taught in collaboration with IDH 3400-013 Fostering a Compassionate City: Systems Thinking for Social Change, and IDH 4950-004 Compassionate Cities: An Emerging Social Development, and students from each class built three-person teams to collaborate on semester long, community-engaged visual capstone projects within Tampa’s University Area neighborhood.
PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE SOUTH
University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2015
Download: Ragland-Photography in the South-Syllabus.pdf
Photography in the South led students from the classroom to the studio and from the library to the museum, in search of an understanding of the South and the complex ways in which it has been pictorially represented through fine art and documentary photographic practices. In tandem with their studio assignments and coursework, students conducted individual and team-based research inside the Birmingham Museum of Art and worked with Wassan Al-Khudhairi, former Hugh Kaul Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, and former BMA Librarian Lindsey Reynolds, to jointly curate a public exhibition of Southern photographs from the permanent collection.
Over a period of eight weeks, students mined the BMA’s holding of photographs, collectively chose an exhibition theme, and worked step-by-step to research images and artists, creating wall text and labels, and coordinated the installation. Eleven photographs were selected for the exhibition, and Inherited Scars: A Meditation on the Southern Gothic opened at the Birmingham Museum of Art in April, 2015. The students served as gallery docents at the museum, and the exhibition served as a focal point for museum public programming, including a storytelling event, Storytelling and Southern Identity with Members of the Moth Radio Hour.
In addition to the BMA exhibition, students also exhibited their personal creative work in a group show at UAB’s Visual Arts Gallery that then traveled to the Shelby County Arts Council in Columbiana, Ala.
The PDF syllabus also contains student evaluations, an article on the BMA curatorial project for Focal Plane Magainze, and a press release for the students’ exhibition, Accidental Grace: Photographs Made in and About the South.
STORIES FROM THE LINE: DOCUMENTING POVERTY
University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2015
Cross-listed with Media Studies and co-developed/co-taught with Michele Forman
Download: Ragland-Stories from the Line-Syllabus.pdf
An intermediate-level special topics studio course cross-listed with an interdisciplinary Media Studies course and co-taught with University of Alabama at Birmingham Media Studies director Michele Forman, Stories from the Line led students to investigate the formation and representation of poverty and labor in the Deep South. Informed by a comprehensive study of the history of documentary photography and film practice, students engaged the local Birmingham community and created photographic and video projects for public exhibition and publication.
The course was initiated in collaboration with Americorps/IMPACT America and served as a pilot for IMPACT America’s documentary filmmaking initiative, Stories from the Line, which aims to provide an accessible window into the lives of families responding to the challenges of poverty in America.
Several student films from the class were accepted into the 2016 Sidewalk Film Festival in Birmingham, including Anissa Latham’s Headways. Photography student Devin Lunsford’s final project, Done Lost Too Much, was published in the social science journal Deviant Behavior and in the inaugural issue of Focal Plane Magazine in 2017.
CAMERA-LESS
University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2016
Download: Ragland-Cameraless-Syllabus.pdf
Taught at an introductory level and open to students without any prerequisite coursework in photography, CAMERA-less focused on the aesthetic and conceptual implications of current, digital lens-based practices through assignments considering appropriation, construction and manipulation, image archives, surveillance, and mapping. In addition to daily and weekly assignments students worked throughout the semester on individual research projects to recontextualize and reanimate content from the Birmingham Museum of Art’s Hansen Library. Each project was presented as a limited edition artist zine and accessioned into the BMA’s artist book collection at the end of the course. To read more about the class, see the UAB news story about the zine projects here.
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COURSES TAUGHT
*developed curriculumUTAH STATE UNIVERSITY, 2021–
Assistant Professor
- Advanced Photography Studio (junior and senior level)*
- Analog Photography (Large Format Camera)*
- Digital Imaging*
- Documentary & Visual Storytelling*
- Theory of Photography*
- History of Photography*
- Photography I (Digital Photography)*
- Graduate Studio
- Independent Projects
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA, JUDY GENSHAFT HONORS COLLEGE, 2019–20
Visiting Distinguished Professor
- The Champion Image: Socially-Engaged Visual Storytelling*
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The Compassionate Image: Socially-Engaged Visual Storytelling (taught in collaboration with Fostering a Compassionate City: Systems Thinking for Social Change taught by Dr. Alan Bush and Compassionate Cities: An Emerging Social Development taught by Dr. Ulluminair Salim)*
- The Art of Politics: Photography, Propaganda, and Politics*
- Looking Beyond Florida Man and Sunsets: Florida and the South in Photographs*
UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM, 2013–18
Adjunct Faculty
- BFA Exhibition
- BA Capstone: Contemporary Art Practices
- Special Topics: Camera-less*
- Special Topics: Stories from the Line – Documenting Poverty (cross-listed with Department of History, Media Studies)*
- Special Topics: Photography in the South*
- Special Topics: Neighborhood Studies (cross-listed with Department of History)
- Intermediate Photography
- Experiential Photography*
- Beginning Photography*
- 4-D Design Foundations
CORCORAN COLLEGE OF ART + DESIGN, 2007–13
Adjunct Faculty
- Studio Photojournalism Core IV Senior Thesis*
- Studio Fine Art Photography Core IV Senior Thesis
- Studio Photojournalism Core III*
- Studio Fine Art Photography Core III*
- Light Studies & Optical Culture
- Focus on Photojournalism Pre-college*
LAGRANGE COLLEGE, 2004–05
Adjunct Faculty
- Documentary Photography*
- Basic Photography*
- 2D Design
- Western Humanities II*
TULANE UNIVERSITY, 2002–03
Instructor of Record
- Foundations of Art: Photography*
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MENTORSHIP
UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY, 2021-
- Master of Fine Arts Graduate Thesis Committee, student: Cooper Lott
- Master of Fine Arts Graduate Thesis Committee Chair, student: Andrew McAllister
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Master of Fine Arts Graduate Thesis Committee Chair, student: Jc Santistevan
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Master of Fine Arts Graduate Thesis Committee, student: Hamish Jackson
- Primary Investigator and Faculty Mentor, 2024 Bear Lake Needs Assessment Project Grant, to direct cohort of undergraduate photography students in documenting USU research teams working within Bear Lake region
- 2024 Peak Research Grant (SARG) Mentor, student: Eleonnora Bonizzi for the project, “Maes Unidas”
- 2024 Summer Arts Research Grant (SARG) Mentor, student: Lele Bonizzi for the project, “What Stillness Tells Me”
- 2024 Summer Arts Research Grant (SARG) Mentor, student: Kennedy Fry for the project, “With Love, Mother”
- 2023 Summer Arts Research Grant (SARG) Mentor, student: Eleonnora Bonizzi for the project, “Ananda Marga through the Lens of Malta: A Photographic Exploration”
- 2025 Undergraduate Research and Creative Opportunities (URCO) Grant Mentor, student: Annora Madden
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2022 Undergraduate Research and Creative Opportunities (URCO) Grant Mentor, student: Hailey Larson for the project, “Memento Mori”
- Faculty Sponsor, 2024 Society for Photographic Education W/SW Regional Conference travel grant, students: Lele Bonizzi, Eli Clare, Kjrstine Landaverde, Annora Madden
- Faculty Sponsor, 2023 Society for Photographic Education National Conference travel grant, students: Victoria Johnson and Bailey Rigby
- Faculty Sponsor, Spring 2025 USU Research on Capitol Hill, students: Annora Madden and Kennedy Fry, “Bear Lake Needs Assessment,” poster presentation
- Faculty Sponsor, Fall 2023 USU Student Research Symposium, student: Eleonnora Bonizzi, “Ananda Marga through the Lens of Malta: A Photographic Exploration,” oral presentation
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Faculty Sponsor, Spring 2023 USU Student Research Symposium, student: Bailey Rigby, poster presentation
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Faculty Sponsor, Spring 2023 USU Student Research Symposium, student: Victoria Johnson, poster presentation
- Faculty Sponsor, Spring 2022 USU Student Research Symposium, student: Hailey Larson, poster presentation
DUKE UNIVERSITY, 2023; 2015
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Master of Fine Arts in Experimental & Documentary Arts Graduate Thesis Committee, student: Vann Thomas Powell
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Master of Fine Arts in Experimental & Documentary Arts Graduate Thesis Committee, student: Aaron Canipe
AUBURN UNIVERSITY AT MONTGOMERY, 2023
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Summer Research Mentor, students: Grayson McDaniel; Akeyah Henderson, for program of study to encourage experiential learning, visual research practices, and conceptually driven/socially minded photographic practice
COLUMBUS STATE UNIVERSITY, 2022
- Mentor, Advanced Photography Class Curatorial Project, students: Bethany Hucks and Gina Bedir, no shade in the shadow at The Do Good Fund
COLLEGE OF WILLIAM & MARY, 2020
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Catron Scholarship Mentor Program, students: Iris Wu; Yaxi Xiao
UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA, 2016
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Master of Arts Graduate Thesis Committee, student: Celestia Morgan
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STUDENT OUTCOMES
Aaron Canipe, selections from the series Plateau
Pigment prints, 20x24” each
MFA thesis project
Master of Fine Arts in Experimental & Documentary Arts, Duke University, 2015
aaroncanipe.com
Celestia Morgan, selections from the series Redline
Pigment prints, various sizes
MA Thesis Project
Master of Arts, University of Alabama, 2016
celestiamorgan.com
Vann Thomas Powell, selections from the series, On Contentious Groud
Pigment prints from film negatives, various sizes
MFA thesis project
Master of Fine Arts in Experimental & Documentary Arts, Duke University, 2023
vannthomaspowell.com
Hamish Jackson
Wet-plate collodion tintypes, 8x10” each
MFA ceramics thesis exhibition, Utah State University, 2023
To make plates on site, a Bureau of Land Management pit latrine was converted into an on-site darkroom
Andrew McAllister, installation views and selections from the series Wanderer
Pigment prints, 6x9” each
MFA thesis project
Master of Fine Arts, Utah State University, 2023
Jc Santistevan, installation view and selections from the series Ni de aqui ni de alla...
Pigment prints, 20x30” each
MFA thesis project
Master of Fine Arts, Utah State University, 2023
Documentation of the student curated exhibition Inherited Scars: A Meditation on the Southern Gothic
Birmingham Museum of Art, April 2 – August 9, 2015
Special Topics: Photography in the South, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2015
artsbma.org/exhibition/inherited-scars-a-meditation-on-the-southern-gothic/
Lele Bonizzi, selections from the series Credimi, Chiamami, Vedimi / Believe Me, Call Me, See Me
Pigment prints, various sizes
BFA thesis project
Advanced Photographic Studio (Senior level), Utah State University, 2024
utahstatemagazine.usu.edu/research/a-look-through-the-lens
Kennedy Fry, installation and selections from the series With Love, Mother
Silver gelatin prints, 4x5” each
Analog Photography (Large Format Camera) / BFA thesis project / Summer Arts Research Grant project, Utah State University, 2023-24
usuphoto.com/Nov-18-2024
Bailey Rigby, installation view and selections from the series The Study of Last Things
Pigment prints and found objects, various sizes
BFA thesis project
Advanced Photographic Studio (Senior level), Utah State University, 2023
baileyrigby.com
usu.edu/today/story
Victoria Johnson, installation view and selections from the series, The body is only a vessel
Pigment prints, various sizes
BFA thesis project
Advanced Photographic Studio (Senior level), Utah State University, 2023
usu.edu/today/story
usustatesman.com/victoria-johnson-capturing-life-and-the-afterlife/
Olivia Ethington, selections from the series, The things to say will be there when you need them
Pigment prints, 20x24” each
BFA thesis project
Advanced Photographic Studio (Senior level), Utah State University, 2024
Kenzli Todd, selections from the series, Fledgling
Pigment prints, 24x30” each
BFA thesis project
Advanced Photographic Studio (Senior level), Utah State University, 2024
Kennedy Fry
Pigment prints, various sizes
Selections from the course final project
Advanced Photographic Studio (Junior level), Utah State University, 2023
Lele Bonizzi
Pigment prints, various sizes
Selections from the course final project
Advanced Photographic Studio (Junior level), Utah State University, 2023
Annora Madden
Wet-plate collodion tintypes, 4x5” each
Analog Photography (Large Format Camera), Utah State University, 2023
usuphoto.com/Dec-4-2023
Lele Bonizzi, selections from the series Maes Unidas
Pigment prints, 11x14” each
USU Peak Fellowship summer research project conducted with non-profit organization, Maes Unidas, in Porto Seguro, Brazil, Utah State University, 2024
Award of Excellence, 2024 CPOY 79, International Picture Story: cpoy.org
utahstatemagazine.usu.edu/research/a-look-through-the-lens
Lele Bonizzi, What Stillness Tells Me
One act play
Synopsis: “A young man arrives at a photography studio for a portrait session—but as the interaction unfolds, it becomes clear that something deeper is at play. The real-time creation of a historical wet-plate collodion tintype photograph serves as a metaphor for the development of the characters and meditation on memory, identity, and mortality.”
Summer Arts Research Grant project, Utah State University, 2024
usu.edu/today/story/usu-senior-lele-bonizzi-to-debut-innovative-one-act-play
Various students
Digital images
Portrait assignment
Photography I, Utah State University, 2023
Beatrice Powell, untitled works documenting a neighbohood in Logan, Utah
Digital images
Place assignment
Photography I, Utah State University, 2023
Iris Wu, selections from an untitled series
Silver gelatin and pigment prints, various sizes
Catron Scholarship Mentor Program, College of William & Mary, 2020
iriswuphoto.com
Devin Lunsford, selections from the series Waiting for Something That’s Not Coming
Pigment prints, 6x6” each
Course final project
Special Topics: Photography in the South, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2015
devinlunsford.com
Devin Lunsford, selections from the series, Done Lost Too Much
Pigment prints documenting recovering methamphetamine cooks, made in collaboration with UAB Department of Criminology student Natalie Matos, 16x24” each
Course final project
Special Topics: Stories from the Line – Documenting Poverty, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2015
Done Lost Too Much in the journal Deviant Behavior
Done Lost Too Much in Focal Plane Magazine
devinlunsford.com
Anissa Latham, stills from Headways
Video, 4:30 minutes
Course final project
Special Topics: Stories from the Line – Documenting Poverty, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2015
vimeo.com/180353117
Macy J. Moon, selections from Day 5 - November 27, 2018, from the series Walking Archive
Digital images published to online archive website
Course final project
Special Topics: Neighborhood Studies, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2018
Selection of student artist books and zines accessioned into the Birmingham Museum of Art Hanson Library Artist Book Collection
Special Topics: Camera-less, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2016
uab.edu/news/self-published-artist-books-and-zines-made-by-uab-students
Daniel Senko, selections from the artist book, Taking Portraits
Rephotographed photobook dust jacket portraits, various sizes
Course final zine project
Special Topics: Camera-less, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2016
uab.edu/news/campus/item/7633-self-published-artist-books-and-zines
Cole Martin
Silver gelatin prints, 6x6” each
Self-portrait assignment
Experiential Photography, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2018
Eric Gregory Powell, selections from the series Route 1
Pigment prints, 16x20” each
BFA thesis project
Studio Photojournalism Core IV, Corcoran College of Art + Design, 2007
Jessica Kolscielniak, selections from the series Weighted Decisions
Pigment prints, 16x24” each
BFA thesis project
Studio Photojournalism Core IV, Corcoran College of Art + Design, 2007
jessicakoscielniak.com
Sara J. Winston, selections from the series Chronicles
C-prints, 8x8” each
Sequencing and narrative assignment
Studio Fine Art Photography Core III, Corcoran College of Art + Design, 2010
sarajwinston.com
John Edmonds, Male Studies
C-prints, 10x10” each
Studio Fine Art Photography Core III, Corcoran College of Art + Design, 2010
johnedmonds.studio
brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/john_edmonds
Justine Tobiasz, selections from the series Strike, Gently
Gum bichromate prints with blood, 16x20” each
Sequencing and narrative assignment
Studio Fine Art Photography Core III, Corcoran College of Art + Design, 2008
justinetobiasz.info
Nick Popovici, Gang One (top) United We Stand (bottom left); Disease One (bottom center); At What Cost (bottom right)
Mixed media collages, 24x36” each
BFA thesis project
Studio Fine Art Photography Core IV, Corcoran College of Art + Design, 2008
William Knipscher, installation view of The Children
Artist-made beeswax and charcoal crayon rubbing from photo-polymer plates in handmade wood frames, 48x60” each
BFA thesis project
Studio Fine Art Photography Core IV, Corcoran College of Art + Design, 2009
williamknipscher.com
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