Each issue of the Messenger, we provide a profile for one NNU faculty member, one staff member, one undergraduate student and one graduate student. Meet Paul, our faculty profile for Winter 2023 and NNU’s Professor of Visual Art and Art History.
NAME: R. Paul Kinsman (Richard Paul Kinsman) (When I was a kid, my uncles called me Richard Paul Kinsman dirt-dirt-fink stink-oil can-rubber nose-pinky-mudface-hermit…but that’s a story for a longer article. Haha!)
PROFESSION: Professor of Visual Art + Art History, and Freelance Graphic Designer
HOMETOWN: Easton, MA (Between Boston and Cape Cod) (Born in Quincy, MA…home of Eastern Nazarene College)
FUN FACT ABOUT YOU: I’m a Leap Day baby! Next year, I’ll be 14! Woohoo! Also, I met my wife at General Assembly in Indianapolis, 1989! (Nazarene enough for you? Haha!)
FAVORITE NNU MEMORY SO FAR: This is such a tough question because every day seems to be filled with amazing interactions with colleagues and students. Every day, I make memories I’ll cherish! If I have to pick ONE: A few years ago, Dr. Peterson and I took a group of students to Europe. One day, we visited the National Gallery in London, and I remember walking up behind a student, Kenzie Felzien, as she was looking at Vincent van Gogh’s, “Sunflowers.” As I got closer, I realized she was crying! “What’s wrong!?” She said she was crying because she’d never seen a van Gogh painting in person, and it was really moving for her. Through the painting, she could feel van Gogh’s brilliance, but also his pain. It was a moment of realizing how powerfully and deeply students were absorbing all that we were doing and teaching in the Visual Arts program.
PROUDEST ACCOMPLISHMENT FROM YOUR TIME AT NNU: In 2018, I was honored to win “Professor of the Year” at NNU. I absolutely love what I get to do every day in the classroom, and I work hard at it, so to receive that award meant more to me than any award I’ve received in my entire life. (I’m also proud of the growth in our program, the development of the curriculum, and the success our graduates have enjoyed.) (Oh, and I’m always proud when we come back from Europe with the same number of students we left with!)
WHY YOU CHOSE CHRISTIAN HIGHER EDUCATION: There was a point in my design career when I started to feel like part of who God made me to be was being left on the sidelines. When I started teaching, I felt more whole. Every day, everything God made me to be is called upon. My faith, my love of people, my love of art and art history, my love of design, my love of learning, my love of travel—all of it, all of who God made me to be is called upon each and every day. It can be exhausting, but it’s also incredibly rewarding. There’s truly nothing I’d rather do with my life than what I get to do here at NNU, and I thank God every day for it. And I know I’m not the only person at NNU who would say the same thing!