Diane Klein, an art teacher at Bowsher High School in Toledo, receives the BGSU Alumni Community Award from Mariann Reinke, alumni affairs director and associate vice president for University Advancement.

Alumni Community Award presented to Toledo art teacher

Commitment to her community has earned a Toledo teacher an honor from the BGSU Alumni Association.

Diane Klein, an art teacher at Bowsher High School, received the BGSU Alumni Community Award Thursday (May 20) during an alumni event at the Toledo Zoo.

Klein graduated from the University in 1987 with a bachelor’s degree in art education. Later that year, she began her teaching career at Bowsher, where she is co-organizer of the annual senior art show and a member of the humanities team.

The Toledo resident is also a facilitator for the Jefferson-Madison Leadership Camp, a program for high school students in Toledo Public Schools.

Her students annually compete and win awards in local and regional art exhibitions and contests. In 1996, both the Ohio Art Education Association (OAEA) Youth Art Month flag competition and the United Way Caring for Others poster contest were won by a Bowsher student. One of Klein’s students won the flag competition again in 2002.

She is a member of OAEA, which named her Outstanding Art Teacher in northwest Ohio in 2001. A regional director for the association from 1999-2001, she remains regional chair for an OAEA exhibition of high school student work in Columbus.

Klein was inducted into Phi Delta Kappa, the professional association for educators, in 1994—the same year she earned a master’s degree in art education from the University of Toledo. She is current chair of the Bowsher team in a humanities collaborative with UT, as well as a former member of the Toledo Museum of Art Education Advisory Board.

“Through her continued success, passion and determination, she has made a name and a face for herself throughout northwest Ohio and nationally in the arts community,” said Mariann Reinke, director of alumni affairs and associate vice president for University Advancement at BGSU.

At the same time, Klein has continued to support her alma mater as a member of the Falcon Club and the BGSU Alumni Chapter of Greater Toledo. She is a former president of the Falcon Club Advisory Board and a volunteer recruiter of high school students for the alumni chapter.

The former Martha Holden Jennings Scholar is also a member of Trinity Lutheran Church in Toledo, where, in the 1990s, she was active in two city council campaigns and the campaign to adopt a strong-mayor form of government.