Darlene Clover
Hall of Fame Class of 2022
Darlene Clover, professor and graduate adviser in Leadership Studies at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, is a distinguished scholar and researcher who has made countless contributions to the field of adult and continuing education. Her professional impact shows particularly in three significant areas: art education and museums, adult education and the arts, and environmental adult education. Clover’s focus on museums as sites for adult education led her to devise teaching tools and techniques that are now the most commonly used adult education methods in making museums sites of progressive learning. She is the most active scholar in the world in adult education and learning in museums and art galleries and has received national and international grants in this area. Through her research, she created a series of innovative museum and gallery methodological, pedagogical, analytical, and interventionist tools called “hacks”: including the Feminist Museum Hack (gender justice), the Decolonizing Museum Hack (reconciliation), the Critical Museum Hack (class), and the Ecological Hack (socio-environmental issues). As an advocate of teaching/learning in arts-based methods of adult education for students, academics, activists, and educators, she is one of the most respected adult educators in this field. Moreover, she is one of the leading scholars nationally and internationally in environmental adult education, which was the topic of her doctoral thesis. Her coaching of young scholars and practitioners in this field is recognized in the global adult education movement.
Clover has been an active scholar in feminist adult education as well. She has travelled to India multiple times and worked with colleagues on promoting feminist educational processes for political empowerment of women elected to local governments. Her contributions to arts-based education and research are still being utilized internationally in building capacity for a new generation of educators and practitioners.
For her excellent work in adult and continuing education she received the David Jones Award for Creativity (Standing Conference on University Teaching and Research in the Education of Adults, 2018) and the Teaching Excellence Award (Faculty of Education, University of Victoria, 2016).
The author/co-author of many books, she has also written research papers, book reviews, and research reports, which are published in international academic peer-reviewed journals, and has reviewed numerous manuscripts and papers for international journals. More than 6,000 copies of The Nature of Transformation: Environmental Adult Education, by Clover, Jayme, Hall and Follen have sold worldwide and been translated into Catalan; the book has been reviewed in both academic journals and the popular press. In addition, she has presented her work in conferences and seminars throughout the world. As a faculty member, she has taught many courses during her academic career, mentored and trained master’s and research scholars, and served as principal/co-principal investigator of research projects funded by various international organizations. Internationally, she has delivered keynote addresses at academic conferences in Australia and New Zealand and served as visiting scholar with the UNESCO Institute for Education in Hamburg, Germany. Her lectures and training workshops have been popular in India, Malaysia, South Africa, Colombia, Uganda, and other locales.
She is an Advisory Board member of the Culture and Heritage Programme at UVic, an Editorial Board member of the BC Museums Association Magazine, Roundup, the President of the Society of the Friends of St. Ann’s Academy and the Treasurer of the Canadian Association of the Study of Adult Education. She is currently the co-convenor of the Research Group of the International Association of Women’s Museums (IAWM).