Dr. Gurley brings to his academic position a background in professional theatre, as an actor, director, educator, arts administrator, as well as experience in all areas of production.  He has taught theatre at the high school, the undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as professional residencies to K-12 students. Dr. Gurley has served as a theatre specialist and theatre educator for state arts agencies in Arizona and Oregon. He has advanced degrees from: Washington State University, MA Theatre (Directing and Criticism) 1997; and West Georgia University, MA Psychology 1984.

Dr. Gurley completed his doctoral degree from Arizona State University in 2006, where he received the Herberger College of Fine Arts Distinguished Graduate Teaching Award.  In 2002, he received the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival Region VIII Meritorious Achievement Award for directing an original script.

His dissertation research Drama and Moral Education: The Plays of Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849), published by VDM Verlag 2008, concerns the uses of drama for children as a mode of secular moral education in the eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries in France and Ireland.  The dissertation received recognition from the Children’s Literature Journal/Project Muse. Dr. Gurley has presented at international theatre conferences in the areas of arts pedagogy, creative play devising, social justice theatre, educational puppetry, and ensemble-development.

Dr. Gurley published two texts in 2011, Art and Human Values and Art and Gender: an Intersexual Reader from Cognella Publishing. He is the program’s liaison to First Year Programs and serves on the First Year Program Faculty Advisory Board. He is currently developing a class, Integrated Arts across the Curriculum, for 2015-16.

Courses
AAD 250 Art and Human Values
AAD 251 Arts and Visual Literacy
AAD 252 Art and Gender
AAD 410/510 Integrating Arts Across the Curriculum