College of Arts and Sciences

Art Faculty

Libby Karlinger Escobedo
Assistant Professor of Art History
lescobed@aurora.edu
630-844-3829

Libby Escobedo received a B.A. in Art History from UCLA and a M.A. and Ph.D. in the History of Art from Bryn Mawr College.  Prior to coming to Aurora University in Fall 2007, Dr. Escobedo spent four and half years at the Index of Christian Art at Princeton University, cataloguing medieval manuscripts from the Pierpont Morgan Library’s collection. She continues to research medieval manuscripts, primarily from France and England.  Dr. Escobedo is currently working on a Book of Hours made in the 1420s in Rouen, during the English occupation of the city. She teaches Art History, Arts and the Human Experience, and Interdisciplinary Studies.

Stephen Lowery
Professor of Art
slowery@aurora.edu
630-844-5298
Homepage: web.aurora.edu/~slowery

Stephen Lowery was born in Muncie, Indiana in 1943 where he lived until graduating from high school. In 1966 he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Herron School of Art in Indianapolis. His primary undergraduate emphasis was in painting with a secondary emphasis in sculpture. He was the recipient of the Roger Gould Wolcott Graduate Award, given by the school, which allowed him to spend the summer of 1966 in Europe. He went to graduate school at Tulane University in New Orleans and graduated in 1971 with a Master of Fine Arts degree.

Mr. Lowery has lived in the far western Chicago suburbs, specifically the Fox Valley, since 1974. He has taught studio art at Aurora University since 1986 where he currently is a Professor of Art. He works in both two dimensional and three dimensional media. He began a series of paintings in December of 1997 on which he is currently working and believes this to be the most productive period he has had in the forty some years that his primary focus has been to create visual art.

Mr. Lowery's time, energy and focus, after practical considerations, are given to his art. He isn't very social and not much fun at a dinner party. He is passionate about his teaching; his grown children; a granddaughter; and a few close friends. His one outside interest has been Russian art and culture. During the last four years he has made three trips to Russia and is attempting, with some success, to learn the language. Of particular interest is Soviet era Socialist Realist painting which is not readily seen in the west.

More biographical information, an artist's statement, vita and examples of paintings can be found on Mr. Lowery's website.

Michael R. Sawdey
Professor of Art
msawdey@aurora.edu
630-844-5656
Home page: web.aurora.edu/~msawdey

A native of western New York State, Michael Sawdey has spent most of his adult life in the midwest. After graduating from the University of Michigan with an honors degree in English and German, he pursued his graduate education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he earned his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees.

Following his graduate teaching appointment at the University of Illinois, where he taught in literature and creative writing, he has taught at Greenville College, Parkland College, University of Vermont, Community College of Vermont, and, for the last 22 years, at Aurora University.

A “lifer” when it comes to photography, Dr. Sawdey has been involved in both the art and craft of traditional photography for some fifty years and for the last decade has also worked extensively in digital photography and imaging. He has exhibited in a number of shows over the years and has designed and taught photography courses at Aurora University since their inception in 1988.

In his own work, he tends to concentrate on “urban landscapes” and the “built environment,” those aspects of the world which have been shaped or remade by human activity and the nature of which reflects the values, aspirations, and, at times, the abject failures of humankind. In addition to photographing in such varied settings as Ireland, Italy, England, Scotland, New England, the Canadian Rockies, and the Gulf Coast, he has “traveled much in Aurora,” documenting in his art many of the urban changes over the past two decades.

In his teaching, Dr. Sawdey is committed to helping his students find and figure forth their own visions, while developing an understanding of their own place within the long-term enterprise of art. A self-confessed “cultural studies junkie,” Dr. Sawdey tends to the “primitive” notion that art is in everything and everything is in art, and he does his best to help his students understand how intricate and highly-serious, but as a result how much fun, the commitment to one’s art can be.

A resident of the Fox Valley since 1985, Dr. Sawdey lives in Aurora with his wife, Dr. Laurel Church, Professor Emeritus of Communication at Aurora University; they have a daughter, son, and two grandsons. When he’s not photographing or teaching, Dr. Sawdey can often be found tinkering with old cars or experimenting with photographic or electronics equipment.

Christine Flasch
Professor of Music
cflasch@aurora.edu

Christine Flasch is a distinguished musician who holds a master’s degree in vocal performance from Syracuse University. Her solo career in New York City included singing leading soprano roles nationwide, and culminated in eight years with the Metropolitan Opera chorus where she sang a number of comprimario roles under the direction of James Levine and the late David Stivender. 

Since that time she has taught voice and held various appointments at colleges and universities in Illinois and Wisconsin, including the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University, the University of Wisconsin / Milwaukee, Carroll College, and Aurora University.

Her duties have included the development of opera workshops and professional opera programs, as well as building and conducting a number of choirs. Several of her vocal students are enjoying top careers in the United States and abroad.

She currently serves as Executive Director of Music by the Lake on the George Williams Campus where she directs two professional ensembles, the Music by the Lake Singers and Festival Orchestra. In addition, she teaches applied voice and directs the Aurora University Chorale and Women’s Ensemble on the Aurora, Illinois campus.