Faculty Profile: Michael Schmidt

“EVERYTHING I CAN SAY THAT I’VE ACHIEVED FROM 2004 ONWARD HAS BEEN THE PRODUCT OF COLLABORATION.”

MICHAEL SCHMIDT

Associate Professor, Department of Art

OVER THE PAST 15 YEARS, DR. MICHAEL SCHMIDT, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR WITH THE DEPARTMENT OF ART, has made an unlikely home for himself at the crossroads between graphic design and public health. “A pivotal moment in my career came around 2004 when former dean Dr. Richard Ranta asked if I would direct the UofM's Center for Multimedia Arts, a new center in the FedEx Institute of Technology,” Schmidt said. “It sounded like quite an opportunity, so of course I declined at first.”

Schmidt would soon reconsider and take Ranta up on his offer, heading up the center's externally-funded print, exhibit, interactive and video projects to promote child, family and community health needs.

Schmidt’s role with the Center for Multimedia Arts gave him an opportunity to work with people from a wide variety of disciplines, as well as significant community stakeholders in the Mid-South. That led to interactions and ongoing projects with organizations like St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, the Urban Child Institute and more.

“Eventually, through dealing with those associated topics, I found myself becoming more curious about issues related to health and well-being, which led to me going to night school for a PhD in public health,” he said “It’s something I’d become increasingly interested in.”

After eight years of night school, Schmidt earned a PhD in social and behavioral sciences, and with it came a greater understanding of public health issues, as well as where that world intersects with that of art and design.

"As you get closer, you see commonalities and realize that, like most things in life, you go where you’re needed,” he said. “In public health, disparities in the community guide you to where your team will place those limited resources. Likewise, in graphic design, if there’s no need driving your particular problem, it’s very hard to come to a satisfying solution. At the end of the day, both disciplines are interested in positive societal change and they both focus on trying to take current circumstances and improve them.”

A longtime advocate of cross-departmental collaboration, Schmidt soon found himself working on projects where no art professor had previously tread, producing several notable studies alongside Dr. Satish Kedia, professor in the Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences with the School of Public Health.

“We’ve got a few different projects going on with funding from the Office of National Drug Control Policy on an opioid-related project for people who are seeking services and dealing with opioid use disorders,” Schmidt said. “It’s all done to facilitate recovery and looks at issues related to access and retention. That work, in turn, will help inform the design of communication materials and determine what media to use, what messages to state, and how to disseminate those messages.”

A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Schmidt came to the University of Memphis more than 25 years ago after being impressed by the breadth of the curriculum within the Department of Art. The practice of engaged scholarship, or the combination of academic knowledge and communitybased knowledge, has become the core of Schmidt’s work at the UofM. In spring 2020, he received the College of Communication and Fine Arts Dean's Engaged Scholarship Award.

“Everything I can say that I’ve achieved from 2004 onward has been the product of collaboration,” he said. “The University of Memphis, and CCFA in particular, have done a fantastic job fostering this sort of work since the engaged scholarship model emerged on campus. It’s great to see a reflection of CCFA in that model since it made space for someone like me. For that, I have to give credit to Dr. Ranta, Richard Lou and Dean Anne Hogan.”