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RCAH's Guillermo Delgado Honored with 2025 MSU Distinguished Academic Staff Award

May 22, 2025

 

  • Professor Guillermo Delgado recognized for blending art, justice, and education

  • Receives one of MSU’s highest honors for academic specialists

  • Celebrated for his work inside classrooms and correctional facilities alike

By Jessica Watley | RCAH Senior Communications Intern

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Guillermo Delgado, Academic Specialist in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities (RCAH) at Michigan State University, has been awarded the 2024–2025 Distinguished Academic Staff Award—one of MSU’s highest honors, recognizing the outstanding contributions of academic specialists across the University.

An interdisciplinary artist and educator, Delgado has long been committed to creating spaces where students can explore identity, social justice, and healing through the arts. In addition to teaching visual arts and community engagement courses, he is actively involved in arts programming within Michigan correctional facilities and collaborates with a wide range of community organizations. His work is grounded in accessibility and inclusion, consistently pushing the boundaries of what creative education can be.

“Professor Delgado is a dedicated teacher who embodies the mission and vision of RCAH, which is rooted in the public engaged humanities,” said RCAH Interim Dean Glenn Chambers. “He always puts his students first and has a way of mentoring students that always brings the best out of them. He is truly one of the great ambassadors for who we are as a college.”

Delgado’s creative work, outreach, and approach to teaching and mentoring have been featured in numerous exhibitions and news stories, including wide coverage of his work supporting a blind and visually impaired student in a visual arts class. His passion for socially engaged art continues to have a lasting impact not only on RCAH students but also on communities across the state and beyond. In 2014, he began holding creative workshops in men’s prisons in Jackson and Ionia, as well as the juvenile detention center in Lansing. Eventually called the MSU Incarcerated Arts program, that work is ongoing and includes collaborations between students, faculty, incarcerated people, and the staff of the facilities.

Presented annually, the Distinguished Academic Staff Award honors individuals with at least 10 years of continuous service who demonstrate exceptional work in advising, curriculum development, outreach, extension, research, and teaching. Delgado joins a distinguished cohort of recipients in 2025: Samantha Cass (Lyman Briggs College), Andrew Corner (College of Communication Arts and Sciences), and Philip Kaatz (MSU Extension, Institute of Agriculture and Agribusiness).

“It’s incredibly humbling to receive this award,” Delgado said. “To be recognized for doing the work I love—teaching, creating, and building with students and communities—is a true honor. The arts have a powerful way of bringing people together, and I feel grateful every day to be part of a college that believes in that.”

Learn more about Guillermo Delgado’s work: