Adelaide Zou, Instructor

A junior at Columbia College majoring in Human Rights and specializing in Ethnic Studies, Adelaide “Addy” Zou, can only be describe as a woman of many talents. When she is not working on tenants’ rights in Chinatown or pouring over the mechanisms of mass incarceration or landmark civil rights cases, you can find Addy devouring art (especially modern and contemporary) in the city. Her all-time favorite art exhibit was on symbolist painters at the Musée d’Orsay, titled, “Beyond the Stars: The Mystical Landscape from Monet to Kandinsky.” Her (current) favorite artist is Lichtenstein, but that changes with her mood! This summer she will be working part-time on community organizing efforts for the Census 2020 as well as teaching The Subjectives and The Pointillists at Today au Musée.

For two summers, Addy was a camp counselor for first and second graders at a no-kill animal shelter. At the shelter, Addy led games, arts & crafts, and animal encounters to educate campers on compassion and humane treatment. She absolutely loves working with kids of all ages and even has two years of experience teaching ninth grade classes as a health educator for Columbia’s Peer Health Exchange. She also tutored ninth graders one-on-one through Columbia’s Tutoring and Learning Center for a semester. Addy describes herself as a “fun, dynamic speaker who prides herself on finding ways to engage all students with the material, relating the concepts to their interests and life experiences, seamlessly pausing to ask or answer questions, and then incorporating their thoughts back into the curriculum.” Her goal is that at the end of each day, they will be excited to share what they learned with their parents, siblings, and friends. 

Currently, Addy is in love with Columbia's core course, Masterpieces of Western Art, and it’s not only because her grades are excellent. By the end of the semester, she will have had a rigorous survey of Western art history under her belt, and is so excited to get to share her new knowledge of Fauvism, Pointillism/Divisionism, Surrealism, other Modernist movements, or Postmodernism. In addition, Addy spends her time reading, viewing art, and attending talks whenever humanly possible, as she is deeply committed to studying any outside materials needed to create an amazing summer course for these young learners.