There are three attributes that make the Arts and Administration Program at the University of Oregon unique internationally. Our curriculum and orientation to the arts and culture is multicultural and socio-political in focus. The arts and culture are linked to both the individual, but perhaps more importantly to community and place.  Research, particularly critical inquiry, is considered to be of utmost importance.

All of these core components of our program are directly traceable to Professor Emeritus June King McFee who was Professor and Head of the Department of Art Education at the University of Oregon from 1965-1983. Professor McFee died on January 14, 2008.

I first met June King McFee at the Ohio State University in the late 1970s. She was there as a part of a boycott organized by Rogena Degge of a National Art Education Association Conference being held in Atlanta, Georgia a state that did not ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. Several years later, June wrote the introduction to Art in a Democracy edited by Kristin Congdon and I.

Google Video:
Watch "Interview with June King McFee" (1995)

June King McFee is renowned internationally for advancing cultural understanding through art. She credited growing up in the Puget Sound and living near a seaport as the impetus for her international and multicultural perspective. Professor McFee began her university education at Whitman College, received a BA from the University of Washington where she studied with Archipenko, a Master's from Central Washington College, and an Ed.D. from Stanford University.

While at the University of Oregon she founded an internationally recognized doctoral program in Art Education with many distinguished graduates. Among her many other noteworthy achievements at the University of Oregon was her founding of the Institute for Community Arts Studies in 1965 with a founding gift from the Lila A. Wallace Foundation. This institute, now known as the Center for Community Arts and Cultural Policy, continues as a research and public service organization in the School of Architecture & Allied Arts. Since its inception, the endeavors of the Institute have involved studies of the relations between communities and the arts, with a goal toward nurturing and developing an engagement between the two. Historically, the focus of the Institute has been how issues of environment and setting/place relate to a broad spectrum of the arts.

June King McFee's reputation as a scholar was based on an extensive publication record that included four books, with two having multiple editions, 21 chapters in books, and 51 journal articles and reports. Professor McFee's contributions to advancing cross-cultural understanding of the arts and culture has been recognized through numerous honors and citations. She was the first recipient of the June King McFee award given by the Women's Caucus of the National Art Education Association.

The Arts and Administration Program at the University of Oregon is June King McFee's legacy. She was pleased to know of the growing numbers of international students joining our student group, took great pride in the international orientation of the faculty, and was gratified by recent developments in our Center.