Benita VanWinkle

Benita VanWinkle serves as an Associate Professor of Art at High Point University. She has held this full-time position for 16 years, following two and a half years as an adjunct instructor. Over her 33-year career as a professor, she has also taught at community colleges across North Carolina and worked for nine years at the Creative Circus in Atlanta, where she taught photography and served as admissions director. VanWinkle is deeply passionate about documentary photography, a pursuit she has followed for 45 years, and she incorporates this focus into her teaching through service-learning courses that take students into the community to create impactful images. She received the Mentorship Matters Award from the university in recognition of her guidance to students. In addition to her academic work, VanWinkle is a practicing documentary photographer who has documented vintage movie theaters built before 1965 across all 50 states, resulting in a book that has gone into its second printing. She contributes her photography skills to numerous nonprofits and community initiatives, often involving her students, and serves on the board of directors for the Theater Historic Society as well as boards for her church and local civic club.