Photos by Ralph Freso / Slideshow
Sheila Schumacher could design a logo and draw much joy from it.
But when it comes down to it, the fruits of her labors have been her students, and helping mold them and support them in their designs of who they want to be.
She has drawn more joy from that than she has from creating any logo in her two decades at Grand Canyon University, where she’s retiring as the chair of the College of Arts and Media’s digital design program.
“I like that phrase, ‘teaching is my heart,’ because I didn’t go to school to be a teacher. I went to school to be a designer,” said Schumacher from her retirement party on Friday at GCU’s Cañón 49. “… But I really felt like that’s where I wanted to be.”
She once said, “If I mounted an exhibition of my best work, it would be photos of them (students).”
When Schumacher started at GCU in 2001 (she left in 2007 then returned in 2012), the university was struggling to keep its doors open, and only about 800 students were part of the campus body.
She brought with her, not only experience in the industry, but a bachelor’s degree in graphic communications from Arizona State University and a Master of Fine Arts in new media, which she earned through an international program at the Transart Institute at Donau University in Krems, Austria.
Connecting with students from all over the world and experiencing different cultures “changed me, improved me, forever," she said.
Schumacher brought that worldview with her to the classroom after working for design agencies in Los Angeles, the advertising departments for retailers such as Dillard’s and Robinson’s, and for newspapers, such as the Phoenix New Times and The Arizona Republic, where she was creative director in the marketing department.
If I mounted an exhibition of my best work, it would be photos of them.
Digital design professor Sheila Schumacher, speaking about her students
That first year she taught at GCU, she said, “I had six kids in the design program,” which would blossom over two decades. “I think that over my 20-plus years here, I’ve touched thousands of kids.”
So to ask her to remember one or two whom she might have inspired is a big ask.
But in a 2021 GCU News article, she recalled one student who had transferred into the design program and later confided in her that she was colorblind.
“She was pretty scared about how that would impact her because she had found such a love of creativity by switching her major.
“To me, this was not a big deal. One of my high school art instructors was colorblind, and at the beginning of desktop computers, they also were colorblind. If we wanted color, we had to know the numeric representation of them to ensure color fidelity through the process.”
Schumacher taught that student to create using those numeric representations. She practiced, creating hundreds of illustrations in color, and she ended up painting murals and inspiring children living in shelters to know that they could do anything with art.
“I believe in process. If you work the process, the process will work for you," Schumacher said.
She also spoke of a student whose wedding she was invited to over the summer.
“It was a blessing to be invited,” she said of being thought of in that way – as more than that student’s professor.
That student thought of her as a mentor and friend.
“To show up and have his entire family know who I was because of the way he talked about me during his school time (was rewarding),” she said.
What she has loved about teaching at GCU, Schumacher said, is she’s not just instructing students in design technique.
“I actually get to model Jesus for them and pray with them and cry with them and laugh with them. It’s just a richer experience than teaching in a public school, where you have these boundaries. … It has helped me to continue to grow.”
Design professor Troy Pottgen landed his first job in academics because of Schumacher. They spoke about a position open at GCU in the design program and, “three days later I was in a classroom,” he said of his start as an adjunct in 2012 before being named a full-time professor four years ago.
He can speak of the rich experience that Schumacher gave students as an educator and how she also led outside of GCU in the Phoenix design community.
In 2024, the American Advertising Federation in Phoenix named her Creative Educator of the Year, which celebrates mentors who serve as inspirational examples and are raising the next generation of designers.
Schumacher served on the board of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, Arizona, as well as its director of education and mentorship, though she is perhaps most well known for directing the organization’s Phoenix Design Week.
But more than that, personally for Pottgen, “I probably learned more from Sheila about teaching but also just mentoring students … she and (College of Arts and Media Interim Dean) Chris Murphy were massive influences on me.”
Schumacher also hired Murphy, who said that she has been a driving force in the Phoenix design community for many years and has great respect from that community.
What he’ll remember, he said, is her kindness and generosity, not just to students, but to faculty.
“She would always go out of her way just to make sure that you’re OK. … She is just someone who is always there for you. You can rely on her,” Murphy said of Schumacher, who the CAM faculty has described as the college’s den mother. Her office was a popular place for faculty to pop in for a visit or word of advice.
“She’s one of the wisest people I know,” said Lisa Tervo, chair of film. “She has an ability, even in the worst situations, to really gauge what’s going on and really understand how to move forward and how to help everyone in that situation, and she’s able to pull something good out of every situation.
“I think part of that is her faith. A belief that things are happening because God meant it to happen; I’ve always admired that. … I’ll be like, ‘The world’s ending,’ and she’ll say, ‘It may be ending, however …'”
Schumacher, who has had health struggles and personal challenges this year, plans to travel in her retirement and find inspiration on the beaches and in other places she’s always dreamed of seeing.
What she leaves behind at GCU is a design program that has grown from six students to more than 1,000 – 500-plus each on the university’s campus in Phoenix and online. It's a program she leaves in the hands of Paige Lock, the co-chair of design.
As she moves on from the students, faculty, adjuncts and staff who she loves, she returns to her faith, “I’m really just open to what the Lord has for me.”
GCU Manager of Internal Communications Lana Sweeten-Shults can be reached at [email protected].
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