Nov. 2000
President's
Message
Portrait of ...
Portrait Of ...
Kathleen Berhalter
A few years ago, if you had asked Kathleen who she is and what she does, you would have received a different answer than you would today. As a young girl her summers were spent traveling from state to state with Reithoffer Shows, a carnival rides group, which intrigued her in the visual arts. After graduation from Kutztown University, Pennsylvania, she began a career teaching the visual arts. After six years teaching in the public schools in three states, and completing a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts Education from Columbia University, New York, she accepted a faculty position at Delaware State College (now a University) and was given the job of getting the Art Department certified by the State of Delaware in order to graduate Art Education majors. She expected to be there only a year or two.
Two years later she went to Pennsylvania State University to obtain a Doctorate degree in Fine Arts and Fine Arts Education and then remained there to teach as a Graduate Assistant. At Penn State, to relieve the enormous tension of doctoral studies, she took courses in black and white photography. She became addicted and vowed to learn more about the art of the camera. In 1970 Del State enticed her to return to become Chairman of the Art Department. Again, expecting the job to be short term, she found herself committed to continuing to build the department and to developing a dark room with courses in photography. The two interests kept her there until December 1999, serving as chairman of the department for twenty-four of those years.
Three years ago brought a radical change when she met Todd, and was married for the first time. Because Todd had retired from the Air Force, where he had been a pilot, she also chose to retire in order to enjoy life together. Since then time has been spent on completing a working studio for photography and painting, selling books on Half.com for fun, and traveling extensively. Still another item on her active agenda is editing a book for Savannah College of Art and Design, Georgia. This book deals with art lesson planning designed to meet the new National Standards and the Discipline Based Art Education approach. Todd and Kathleen bought a house on Moore’s Lake in Dover, and are enjoying the lake front property and its flowering trees and gardens. Has she slowed down? Yes, but her days are still full of the things she loves - photography - travel - making art with mixed media - books - gardening, and last, but certainly not least, living the married life with Todd.