Most Asbury students know Dr. Linda Stratford as one of the collaborators on a recent project presented to campus called “Sacred Spaces in Central Kentucky” or as the founding director of the Asbury University Paris Semester study abroad program. Some even know her as the professor who provides tea for her students to make the classroom environment more welcoming. However, a lot of students look past her dedication to her research outside of the classroom and her passion.
“My love for art isn’t style alone, it’s really the integrative pieces,” Stratford said, explaining how her passion and love for art and the study of it comes from subjects outside of the artwork itself. She draws inspiration for her scholarly work from topics like immigration, aesthetics, and social issues, along with a continuous personal study of secular artwork and its hidden religious roots.
Stratford first found her way into the art world as she was growing up, showing enthusiasm for painting and piano through her childhood and high school. As she entered college, however, she began to pursue a degree in English with the intention of going to law school. She did not expect the exposure that comes with attending a school like her alma mater, Vanderbilt University. She switched to Studio Art after intersecting the possibilities of life and people different from her. Stratford noted, “When I got to college, I was exposed to more serious scholarship at Vanderbilt, and it was really good for me because finally I was surrounded by other people that were better than I was and were smarter than me. Iron sharpens iron.”
So how did she find Asbury after studying at large non-religious schools like State University of New York at Stony Brook, Florida Atlantic University, and Vanderbilt University, and even working and studying in Paris, France? An internet search and good timing. After attending secular schools for her higher education and finishing her dissertation, Stratford said she found a posting on the internet for a full-time professor job at Asbury.
“I had never heard of Asbury, but I was a Christian— enthusiastically so,” said Stratford. Throughout college, she had worked closely alongside InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. She found that an integration of faith and Christian life was something important, which lined up with potentially teaching at Asbury. She, her husband, and their two sons moved to Kentucky to find their long-term home.
Stratford has taught at Asbury for 24 years, her classes centering around higher-level art and art history courses, like Aesthetics, Art Theory, and Criticism. In these 24 years, she has dedicated herself to the growth of her intellectual mind, consistently pushing herself to seek out groups, peers, and readings that will inspire her projects. For her, teaching is her place of relaxation and allows her to do what she loves comfortably. Her scholarly research is the part of her life that keeps her challenged intellectually.
“I’m very motivated to keep my faith strong and very motivated to find other people who ask intelligent questions and are able to speak intelligently about the faith. In fact, they require it. Through university, it was a lot of just seeking out mentors and reading, reading, reading,” said Stratford. Nearly every day, she reads the entirety of the Wall Street Journal and New York Times to keep herself informed and inspired.
The next few steps in her future will look like continuing her recent work published in Routledge, teaching Asburians, and being a loving and enthusiastic grandmother to her first granddaughter, August.