For Anderson University Professor Jer Nelsen and his students, working in the visual arts with constantly changing technology provides new opportunities for learning and discovery around every corner.
“I think wonder and curiosity are amazing things. If we miss those in visual art, we’re doing something wrong,” said Prof. Nelsen, who teaches Photography and Art Foundations classes in the Department of Art + Design of the South Carolina School of the Arts at Anderson University.
Prof. Nelsen is grateful to South Carolina Independent Colleges and Schools (SCICU), which presented him with the 2025 SCICU Excellence in Teaching Award, plus a $3,000 professional development grant which will help enhance his students’ knowledge of 3D scanning and printing.
He was among 21 faculty leaders to be recognized during SCICU’s Excellence in Teaching Awards event in April at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center.
“To be able to bring new resources into the classroom and explore what the future of our field looks like—to be able to do research that is forward thinking and forward leaning is a lot of fun for sure, but more than fun, it’s going to enable our students to have experiences where they can interface with a new technology, helping to prepare them for a rapidly-changing professional landscape,” Prof. Nelsen said.
The grant is making possible a new 3D scanner and software that can scan objects large and small, faithfully replicating textures and surfaces using both infrared and lasers, providing detailed files that can be edited in CAD software and printed on any of the 3D printers in the Department of Art + Design or AU Makerspace.
Having completed his fourth year of teaching at Anderson University, Prof. Nelsen admits that he became an educator quite by accident when he was just out of his undergraduate program.
“My college professor needed to be out for some health reason and asked me to cover his class as an adjunct faculty member, and I begrudgingly said ‘yes.’ It was about the second day in the classroom that it all clicked for me and I just couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else,” Prof. Nelsen said. “Ever since then it’s been a wonderful journey learning alongside my students but also encouraging them in the things I learn. AU is a place where I get to do that daily.”
This fall, Prof. Nelsen will become associate dean for the South Carolina School of the Arts, assuming the role held by Dr. Jo Carol Mitchell-Rogers, who is retiring at the end of this academic year.