Mark Anderson
Marianne and E.G. Lassiter Professor of Art
2024 PC Professor of the Year

A soft-spoken stalwart of Presbyterian College’s art department will end his academic career with a final message to the Class of 2024.

Professor of the Year Mark Anderson, the Marianne and E.G. Lassiter Professor of Art, embraces a rich tradition of academic greats chosen to address seniors at their commencement. As one retiring this spring, Anderson understands the weight of delivering one last lesson.

“It’s incredibly humbling,” he said. “I was pleasantly surprised, I must say. You’re not as visible when you work in a small department with a small handful of students each year, so I’m just very humble and grateful. I’m grateful for the recognition and what it represents to the students I’ve worked with who are great people and people I’m really proud of.”

Like most self-described introverts, Anderson is at his finest in his element – in the studio, working side-by-side with young people discovering their voices through art.

“Teaching art is not the same as teaching in a traditional classroom,” he said. “This is more of a hands-on type of program, and you’re actually seeing your students produce stuff visibly. What we work on with art majors in their senior capstones – or in every class – is that they learn to be proficient in terms of craftsmanship and knowledge of the materials and say something significant about their own lives.”

Art has undoubtedly allowed Anderson to explore and express his life experiences, as it has with his many students over the years. Another avenue he discovered is through becoming a trained and licensed psychotherapist. Helping himself and others navigate the human experience has made for a fulfilling career serving others.

“For me, that’s why art was attractive,” he said. “It was a way that I could deal both with my own psychological issues and cultural issues that are part of the kind of group psyche of being a person at this time in history, from this place in the world. Arts have always dealt with these deeper personal human things. So, you can’t help it. You get into it with people. You discover what their big issues are and what they care about. And if you don’t, then the students who are struggling in class are doing so because the class is aimed toward communicating our deep processes as we grow. The only requirement is that we grow and work on finding that difficult-to-communicate but significant part of ourselves. Being ourselves.”

Like most good educators, Anderson believes the lessons learned in the studio go both ways.

“I’m humbled to have known my students,” he said. “Every one of them has taught me a lot about myself and about them. To me, they’re like family. I think of them that way. They may not think of me that way, but I think of them as family, because I was just incredibly privileged to be around them.”

Anderson said PC students kept him feeling younger and more engaged.

“I’m definitely not an extrovert,” he said. “I’m much more introvert-oriented, but students saved me from myself that way. Trying to understand them and relate to them helped me come out of my shell at the same time as I began to discover their talents.”

Anderson noted that helping students develop confidence and inspiring them to develop their own honest form of expression are skills any student, art major or not, can use in the real world.

“There are many ways you can be dishonest, even in art,” he said. “I think that’s a worse problem than not having talent; it is dishonesty. I would rather see a five-year-old’s honest drawing than a 25-year-old’s slick copy.”

Anderson has spent his entire life in the arts. He said his original ambition was to create his own art. But somewhere along the way, as both a professor and a husband and father, Anderson learned a more significant lesson about being an active participant in his family’s and students’ lives.

“I don’t know when it was, somewhere in the early 90s, but I decided to be good at teaching,” he said. “I’m going to have to continue to make my paintings, but I can’t be pushing an art career, going off places, trying to do shows, and having that agenda. There just weren’t enough hours in a week. But I’ve loved doing this. I mean, I can’t imagine having to be involved in something that wasn’t even a passion.”

Taking on extra jobs to help make ends meet at home also gave Anderson a greater appreciation for having a career at PC doing what he loves.

“I know how miserable I would have been had I just got a good-paying job in something I didn’t care for,” he said. I think that doing something you love is more important than the amount of money you make.”

As he ends his long teaching career at PC, Anderson is turning his focus back to making art.

“I still have that artist who’s knocking on the door now saying it’s his turn,” he said. “Now I have time to express what I need to artistically. I know it’s overdue. I think the painter is demanding time. That part of me is very excited, and I can’t wait to devote myself to it.”

Anderson said he will also continue to provide psychotherapy to others in need.

“This has grown; it feels like a calling,” he said. “You know, a lot of my friends might not understand this, but I have always felt a vocational calling in a religious sense or spiritual sense. I definitely felt this special calling to somehow be of service.”

A conversation with a former colleague, the late Dr. Orval Olesen, cemented Anderson’s desire to become a psychotherapist.

“I went to him kind of whining and groaning about it, and he said to me, ‘Mark if you want to do ministry, look around you. Who needs something? Give them what they need. That’s all you need to do. And if you need more training to do that, then go get the training.'” I thought about it for a while, and that’s how I ended up going to Columbia two nights a week, taking classes to become a psychotherapist. And the minute I started doing it, I knew this was home.

“I feel like I was supposed to be a teacher for a while because I was supposed to learn from these students about human nature, how we express ourselves, the many kinds of expressions, watching people struggle with their confidence and get some confidence.”

As one of the two commencement speakers this weekend, Anderson will share “Art Lessons for Life” with the Class of ’24 and impart some wisdom for their future journeys.

“So many of the things that are basic lessons in making art are also basic lessons in living as a human,” he said. I’m hoping to make a couple of comments about that. But the big deal for me is I’m commencing, too. This is happening at the very last moment of my academic career, the very last day of my academic career, when I’ll give a speech and commence with the class of 2024.

“I’ve never walked in my own graduations. None of them. High school, college, graduate school, both graduate degrees. I’ve never attended a commencement on my own. When I walk out with the faculty on that day, I think that’s my commencement. I’ll feel connected to this class because I’m commencing with them.”

Still, with all that he has to look forward to in retirement, Anderson feels a little grief for what he is leaving behind – his students and colleagues.

“I’ll miss them,” he said. “Come fall, I’ll be lost for a while. That’s going to be tough. You know, these kids have loved me. I have loved them. They have loved me in little ways. I got a plant yesterday. I get cards, usually two or three every term. And they’re in my treasures, you know. Those are things I’ll look at with great fondness. These people are doing amazing things, too, going off and raising families and having careers. I’m so impressed with all of them. What do you say to your colleagues, all the different folks from all backgrounds? The great thing about PC is you will be friends with people who are not part of your discipline. I’ll miss that.”