Since 2017, the Linda Berry Stein College of Fine Arts & Humanities has chosen several of its highest-achieving alumni as Stein College Honored Alumni. They’re recognized each year during Homecoming and Family Weekend. This year’s honorees range from glassblowers to choreographers, and join a storied list of Stein College alumni.
The recipients will be honored at the Stein College Honored Alumni Luncheon on Oct. 22 at 12:30 p.m. in Terry Concert Hall. As part of tradition, each honored alumni receives an original piece of artwork. This year, it was created by Visiting Assistant Professor of Art Foundations Michelle Jones-Lillie. As an alumna herself, Jones-Lillie said this year’s piece held special importance to her. The glass sculptures she created for the alumni honorees hold strong symbolic reference to the immense growth that arises from the nurturing, yet challenging, academic environment found amongst the wise old oak trees of Jacksonville University.
Below is more information on this year’s Stein College Honored Alumni:
Elayne Ashley ’10 is a scientific glassblower living and working in the Pacific Northwest. Elayne studied Scientific Glass Technology at Salem College as well as Fine Art Glassblowing at Jacksonville University. She worked for various artist and production glassblowing companies before joining the Chemistry Department at Georgia Institute of Technology as the Scientific Glassblower.
She is currently the Scientific Glassblower and Quartz Materials Specialist for Helion Energy, a company working to produce a Fusion energy machine. Elayne is the current PNW section Director for the American Scientific Glassblowers Society and has volunteered much of her time as a demonstrator, organizer and member of the ASGS.
Shelby Mickler ’18 works as a copywriter at Odysseys Unlimited, capturing the romance of travel through
tour itineraries and marketing content. She also works with Penguin Random House as
a freelance proofreader, editing YA fiction authors such as Isabel Sterling (These
Witches Don’t Burn). Shelby’s passion for storytelling led her to write for several
publications, including Shmoop.com. To foster her love of teaching, she coached for
an online writing program called WriteAtHome for over three years.
In her spare time, Shelby writes about battling familial and societal expectations as a lesbian. She has also recently completed textual editing of parts of the Bible, comparing nine translations to reveal textual inconsistencies and annotating to provide missing historical and cultural context. Shelby received a Masters in Publishing and Writing from Emerson College in 2021, and graduated from JU in 2018 with a Bachelor of Arts in English, minor in Writing, and Certificate in Editing.
Pioneer Winter ’16 (he/they) is a Miami-based choreographer and artistic director of Pioneer Winter
Collective, an intergenerational and physically integrated dance-theater company,
rooted in social practice and community, queer visibility and beauty beyond the mainstream.
Recognized in Dance Magazine’s 25 to Watch, Pioneer’s work democratizes performance
in public spaces, museums and galleries, stage, and film. A major objective continues
to be expanding the definition of all that dance is and can be so that all bodies
survive, thrive, and are witnessed in spite of constant erasure based upon race, body
type, age, and ability - this goes for both the artists as well as the audience.
Pioneer has been commissioned by Miami Theater Center, Karen Peterson and Dancers, Tigertail Productions, Jacksonville Dance Theatre, FundArte, and the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, where Pioneer is the Center’s first Artist-in-Resident collaboration in a decade. Pioneer has been a guest artist at universities, including Miami Dade College, Nova Southeastern University, Broward College, and Florida State College. Most recently, Pioneer’s work has received support from NEFA’s National Dance Project Award, MAP Fund, the Knight Foundation, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, and Creative Capital. An extension of his creative practice, Pioneer has curated and directed ScreenDance Miami Festival since 2017, presented by Miami Light Project; Pioneer’s own films screen internationally. Pioneer serves as Assistant Teaching Professor in the Honors College and College of Communication, Architecture + The Arts at Florida International University. Pioneer is affiliated faculty at the Center for Humanities in an Urban Environment (CHUE) and an inaugural Fellow in the Miami Studies Program. Pioneer earned a Masters in Public Health and Epidemiology from Florida International University (2009) and a Master of Fine Arts in Choreography from Jacksonville University (2016).
