Mayet Andreassen Honored With Distinguished Achievement Award From The Association Of Former Students
Mayet Andreassen, instructional assistant professor in the Visualization program, was recently selected to receive the 2024 Association of Former Students College Level Distinguished Achievement Award.
The College of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts will host an awards ceremony that will recognize Andreassen on Nov. 15 at 4 p.m. in the Adams Presentation Room of the Langford Architecture Center, Building A.
The Association of Former Students honors outstanding faculty members each fall with the award for their dedication to teaching and their talent, expertise and devotion in conveying knowledge to students. Recipients also get a $2,000 stipend.
Andreassen, who is also the associate program director for the Bachelor of Science degree in Visualization, said she is honored to be recognized.
“It really meant a lot that students and alumni felt I should win this award,” she said. “I am sure there were a lot of great people who submitted for it, so to be recognized is a huge honor.”
Andreassen came to Texas A&M University in 2018. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2D Animation from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and a Master of Fine Arts in Film and Animation from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.
In the games industry, Andreassen worked as an artist at 2K Sports/Visual Concepts Entertainment in Novato, California, and with Zynga Games.
Her 14 years of experience in higher education have included the HOFT Institute Game Lab in Austin, the University of Texas at Austin, Gemini School of Visual Arts and the Art Institute of Austin.
Andreassen serves on the PanelPicker review board for SXSW EDU, and is part of the ACM SIGGRAPH Education Committee.
As she reflected on her career as an educator, Andreassen said her students keep her motivated and encouraged with their drive and passion.
“Sometimes I’m having a rough day, and then I’ll have a class, and my students’ positive energy and joy of learning makes my day bright again,” she said. “I am consistently impressed with their skill, work ethic and willingness to learn. Texas A&M students are really positive and collaborative as well, which is wonderful.”
Andreassen said she focuses on making her classes student-centered, including scaffolding assignments to break them into more manageable chunks. She also created a portfolio assignment so students can take something they created in a studio class and keep it in that digital portfolio.
Fostering good critical thinking skills is also a focus for Andreassen, along with soft skills like collaboration, work ethic and time management.
“There are a lot of people that don’t understand the full breadth of what is needed to navigate the professional world properly,” she said. “My hope is that students learn accountability, how to project manage their own time, how to collaboratively work with other people, how to de-escalate any kind of conflict with conflict resolution skills, and what networking really is.”
Andreassen said she puts a premium on being collaborative and fostering good relationships. She takes pride in seeing the progress her students make and the positive results that follow.
“What brings me the most joy is seeing something click within a student, seeing them create amazing work, and when my students get accolades,” she said. “I absolutely love it when they and their work are recognized.”
