Jenna Bench

Visual and Media Arts Department Assistant

Office: 1105 Alexander Calder Fine Arts Center
Phone: (616) 331-2566
E-mail: [email protected] 

Jenna is the Department Assistant for Visual and Media Arts. She began as the Department Secretary, was promoted to Academic Department Coordinator, and has now advanced to the role of Department Assistant. Jenna joined GVSU with over 15 years of experience in PK teaching and education broadly. She also brings extensive administrative experience from the West Michigan medical industry. Some of her professional passions include student success, advocacy for marginalized communities, and the arts, all of which she is actively engaged in at GVSU. She is deeply committed to creating a space where everyone feels accepted and valued.

In her free time, Jenna enjoys relaxing along the shores of Lake Michigan, attending concerts with her husband, and taking family vacations to Walt Disney World with their children.

Primary Responsibilities: Budget & Finance, Faculty Academic Support, Program Assistance, and Clerical 

Alicia DeLaCruz

Visual and Media Arts Department Academic Coordinator

Office: 1105 Alexander Calder Fine Arts Center
Phone: (616) 331-2567
E-mail: [email protected] 

Alicia DeLaCruz joined Grand Valley in 2021 as Department Secretary and transitioned to Department Academic Coordinator in 2024. Alicia comes to the VMA Department with a background in Art Education and Management of School-age Childcare Programming throughout the state of Michigan. Alicia is a strong advocate for lifelong learning through Art Experiences and Art Education and is very happy to be actively working to assist students and faculty at the collegiate level of education.

In her free time Alicia enjoys being a member of the Grand Rapids Moms of Multiples, painting, and traveling with her family.

Primary Responsibilities: Student Academic Support, Student Employment, Events & Travel, and Clerical 

Dulcee Boehm

Curator of Visual Resources

Office: CAC 1409
Phone: (616) 331-3486
E-mail: [email protected]

Dulcee Boehm is an artist, organizer and advocate for contemporary art in nonmetropolitan areas. Through the use of video, performance and sculptural works, she applies a critical academic lens to rural life. She has exhibited her artwork in a variety of contexts including the Krannert Art Museum in Champaign, Illinois, and an old cattle barn in Grinnell, Iowa. Boehm has also co-organized several programs including Beyond Alternatives in 2018, which was a symposium on artist-run projects outside of large cities in the United States. Before completing her MFA at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in 2018, she worked for many years as a staff member at Ox-Bow School of Art & Artist Residency where she received a Fellowship in 2010. In 2019 & 2020, Boehm received funding from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts for her work with collaborator Ruth K. Burke. Boehm was a Visiting Professor at Grand Valley State University from 2018-21, and currently is the Curator of Visual Resources there in the Visual and Media Arts Department. 

Jerod Christy

3D Technical Supervisor

Office: 1105 Alexander Calder Fine Arts Center
Phone: (616) 331-3615
E-mail: [email protected] 

J.C. is the 3D Technical Supervisor for the Visual and Media Arts Department and coordinates safety training and access for the 3D area facilities. A sculptor and craftsman, J.C. has twenty-five years of dedicated experience in arts education, mentorship, community outreach and advocacy. He has worked in communities across the country as a carpenter, mason, fabricator, foundryman, blacksmith, and handyman in new construction and historic preservation projects.

Prior to joining the GVSU community in 2022, J.C. was an active part of the arts community in Toledo, Ohio where he served as 3D Technical Assistant and Adjunct Faculty for the University of Toledo Department of Arts and Letters, Blacksmithing Instructor for The Toledo Museum of Art, and Exhibits Technician for The Toledo Zoological Gardens and Aquariums.

As a professional studio artist, J.C. was a collaborative member of Toledo’s Historic Warehouse District, and a team recipient of The Arts Commission’s Accelerator and Inter/Active community arts grant programs. While completing his BFA in Sculpture at Bowling Green State University, he worked as a mentor for the Young Artists At Work apprenticeship program. After completing his MFA in 2005 at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, J.C. joined the Metal Arts team at Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark in Birmingham, Alabama as a Resident Artist, Blacksmithing Coordinator, and mentor for the Sloss Metal Arts Summer Youth Apprenticeship program. In 2007, he taught foundry and blacksmithing community classes at Smartshop Metal Arts Collective in Kalamazoo, MI while concurrently working as a Tulikivi masonry heater and fireplace technician.

J.C. maintains a private sculpture studio in southwest Michigan, applying values of environmental sustainability, permaculture, and good stewardship into his artistic practices. He is a loving father to a loving daughter, and spend their time together nurturing imagination and kind-hearted creatures.

Jim Schaub

Communication Systems Technician / Part-time faculty

Office: 104 Lake Superior Hall
Phone: (616) 331-3633
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.upfromthebottoms.com
 

Jim is a Systems Technician for Production Support Resources serving the Dept. of Visual and Media Arts and the School of Communications. He also teaches courses in special effects and editing for the Film and Video Production major, specializing in Adobe After Effects, Photoshop, and Premiere Pro.

Jim has been producing films since the early 1990s. One of his first films, An Interview with Lou Raynor, resides in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Jim works in a variety of genres from non-profit and corporate to documentary and narrative features and shorts. His 2009 documentary Up From the Bottoms: The Search for the American Dream won five festival awards in 22 festivals and aired on PBS nationally from 2011 to 2014.  The documentary also aired on television in the UK and South Africa and is in every major university library in the United States.

Jim is currently in production on Buster Keaton: Home, a documentary about the film legend's early years as a child star in vaudeville and his time at an Actors' Colony in the town he called home - Muskegon, Michigan. In recent years, Jim has also produced and edited six projects for Nutrilite, a division of Amway Inc., countless projects for the Richard M. DeVos Foundation and co-produced the narrative short Moths, a graduate thesis project from Columbia University MFA student, Andy Fortenbacher, which was a semi-finalist for an Academy Award in the Short category.

Jim was a presenter at the 2013 Postapalooza Editing Conference where he taught several sessions on Adobe After Effects. Jim spends his free time volunteering in the community, taking photographs, golfing, and playing with his two adorable granddaughters.

Sara Alsum-Wassenaar

Communication Resource Specialist

Office: 102 Lake Superior Hall
Phone: (616) 331-8175
Email: alsumwas@gvsu.edu

Sara Alsum-Wassenaar is a facilitator of visually-focused experience-based endeavors.  She uses hand-craft methods and interactive technology to uncover relationships between the built environment, people, and nature.  Her work explores ways technology can translate an experience.  In 2020, Alsum-Wassenaar began the Neighborhood Mapping Project and has since received grant funding to continue this project in partnership with West Michigan schools.  The project is a curricular endeavor that invites learners to investigate and inscribe their neighborhood using a variety of lenses including fantasy, scientific style identification, and problem solving.  Alsum-Wassenaar also started Macatawa Strata which explores the various histories and ecologies of the Macatawa watershed.  One project within this focused on the decommissioned power plant site in Holland, MI.  The team hosted two public events on the site where participants were invited to make a ceramic plate, gather data, draw a map, and layer a 120mm photograph. The plates were created by pressing clay on the site's infrastructure and then slumping the clay over a mold to form a plate.  The plates and other items were used to host a dinner for the Holland Planning Commission where guests were asked to contemplate the past, present, and future of the site. The dinner served as a celebration and critique of past and future land-use.

Her work can be viewed at www.macatawastrata.com and www.alsum-wassenaar.com