Andrea “AnDI” Tompkins, art outreach specialist for UA Little Rock, has been named the Higher Education Art Educator of the Year by the Arkansas Art Educators Association.

“I am so happy, astonished, and incredibly honored to be receiving this award from the Arkansas Art Educators Association,” Tompkins said. “I’ve never won any type of accolade like this before, so it was a pleasant surprise.”

Tompkins received the award during the Arkansas Art Educators Fall Professional Development Conference Nov. 2 in North Little Rock.

Tompkins said that she has loved art “for as long as she can remember.” Her father, a mechanical draftsman, taught her how to draw shapes, 3D images, and linear perspectives long before she ever took her first art lesson. She was the first person from her high school to attend the Arkansas Governor’s School for visual arts.

Tompkins went on to complete a bachelor’s degree in art from Hendrix College, studied art history at UA Little Rock, and earned a Master of Science in Education with an emphasis in educational leadership from Northwest Missouri State University.

After more than 20 years of experience working specialized residential high schools and collegiate programs in Arkansas and Missouri, Tompkins transitioned from gifted and talented education to arts administration when she became the manager of the Museum School at the Arkansas Arts Center, now the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, in 2007.

Tompkins joined UA Little Rock in 2019 as the inaugural art outreach specialist for the School of Art and Design. In this role, which she describes as “the best job ever,” she is responsible for recruiting and retaining art majors, teaching a first-year experience class for art majors, community building, and coordinating engaging and fun programming for high school students and art educators. She is especially grateful to the Windgate Foundation, whose generous philanthropy permits her to work in the field she loves.

“The arts are vital to life,” Tompkins said. “I’m going into my fifth year at UA Little Rock, and it’s been great. I am fortunate to work in the arts and be able to make a difference for high school and college students and art educators from across the state.”