A University of South Carolina professor has earned the highest honor the state gives in the arts.
Minuette Floyd, a professor of art education in USC’s School of Visual Art and Design, recently won a Governor’s Award in the arts in the education category. The award, announced by the South Carolina Arts Commission on behalf of Gov. Henry McMaster, is the state’s highest honor for exceptional achievement in practicing or supporting the arts.
A former elementary art teacher, Floyd provides outstanding experiential learning opportunities for students in and out of the classroom, recently leading service-learning programs to London and South Africa.
“Dr. Floyd’s cumulative work and approach to arts learning earned her this honor. Her inclusion practices have had a statewide impact, and expanded access to arts learning,” says David Platts, executive director of the Arts Commission. “She continues to exhibit excellence in and out of the classroom, even expanding what the classroom can be by leading trips abroad.”
Floyd wrote a grant that provided funding for 10 first-generation college students to travel with her to Ghana in 2023 to use art experiences to open dialogue and learn about other cultures. This kind of experience ties in with Floyd’s research interests: multicultural art education, interdisciplinary art instruction and documentation of folk traditions through photography.
The professor of record for the state education department’s Curriculum Leadership Institute in the Arts since 2002, Floyd also directs the Young Artist’s Workshop, in which art education majors design and teach comprehensive units of instruction to children from the Midlands. Floyd even provides scholarships for underrepresented youth to attend this program.
This year’s recipients of the Governor’s Award for the Arts will be recognized during a broadcast on South Carolina ETV in mid-May. A short film by a South Carolina filmmaker highlighting Floyd’s accomplishments will debut as she is being recognized.