Christopher J. Harrington is Dean of the School of Education, Social Sciences, and the Arts at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. An artist, scholar, educator, and academic administrator, his interdisciplinary work spans art education, aesthetics, modernism, theology, and the study of suffering. He has taught at UMES since 1997 and previously served for eleven years as chair of the Department of Fine Arts.

As dean, Harrington promotes inclusive, student-centered education, faculty excellence, interdisciplinary collaboration, and the central role SESA plays in the intellectual life of the university. The school’s six departments prepare educators, artists, communicators, researchers, and public-service professionals while providing foundational courses that serve students throughout UMES.

Harrington’s scholarship examines how knowledge, competence, and professional judgment are formed, evaluated, and legitimized within educational and institutional settings. His research in art education considers the relationship between technical mastery and artistic development, the influence of modernism on conceptions of artistic competence, and the temporal and pedagogical structures of studio art education. His philosophical and theological work addresses suffering, human vulnerability, moral meaning, and the ways artistic and religious thought respond to experiences that resist easy explanation or resolution. Across these fields, his work is united by a concern with formation: how individuals and communities develop knowledge, judgment, identity, and meaning amid uncertainty and incompletion.

Harrington’s academic training spans psychology, art education, and studio art. He holds an undergraduate degree in psychology from Binghamton University, an M.A. and Ed.M. in Art Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and an M.F.A. in painting from the Hoffberger School of Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

A practicing painter as well as a scholar, Harrington has exhibited his work nationally and internationally, including at the Hunter Museum of American Art, the Contemporary Artists Center, and the International Juried Affordable Art Fair in London. He has presented five solo exhibitions in New York City and received the award for Best Contemporary Art at the Academy Art Museum’s 2022 Annual Member Exhibition.

Selected Publications

· “Legitimate Incompletion: Artistic Formation and the Temporal Logic of Studio Art Education.” International Journal of Art & Design Education (2026). https://doi.org/10.1111/jade.70047

· “Evolution, Suffering, and the Moral Texture of Creation.” Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science (2026). https://doi.org/10.16995/zygon.28365

· “Fine Art, Modernism, and the Academic Legitimacy of Artistic Competence.” Journal of Aesthetic Education, forthcoming.

Selected Media

· “Dean’s Corner: Christopher Harrington.” Interview with Walter Woods, Delmarva Public Media, July 23, 2026.

https://www.delmarvapublicmedia.org/deans-corner/2026-07-23/deans-corner-christopher-harrington