MICA's art education program has long been recognized for producing leaders in the field, such as Juan Carlos Castro’99 ’00, who is Assistant Director of Art Education at Concordia University in Montréal, Québec, Canada. Juan Carlos Castro's research focuses on the dynamics and qualities of knowing, learning and teaching art through new and social media as understood through complexity thinking, network theory, hermeneutics, and phenomenology. He is also a practicing artist whose current inquiry explores place, ecology, and learning.

Prior to joining the faculty at Concordia University, Juan Carlos has taught at the University of Illinois, University of British Columbia, Johns Hopkins University, Maryland Institute College of Art, and the Burren College of Art. Juan Carlos is a U.S. National Board Certified Teacher and taught at Towson High School in Maryland. As a high school teacher, Juan Carlos's teaching, and curriculum was awarded a Coca-Cola Foundation Distinguished Teacher in the Arts from the National Foundation for the Advancement in the Arts and twice awarded with a U.S. Presidential Scholars Teacher Recognition Award.