After 35 Years Helping Students Launch Careers, This Most Senior Graduate Starts a New Life in the Arts
Even before he retired from his job in the Career Center, Jim Novak started taking art classes. Benefitting from the tuition assistance that UNC Charlotte offers faculty and staff, Novak enrolled in his first Department of Art & Art History course in the spring of 2020, taking one course per semester until January 2023, when he ended a 35-year career in career services and began his new life as an artist.
At 69, Novak is the most senior of this semester’s graduating seniors. He will earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art with a concentration in painting on December 12. The following month, he will begin a job teaching adult art classes at Holt School of Fine Arts.
Novak had talent and interest in art as a child, but “wasn’t a very disciplined student,” he said. He grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and while neither of his parents had graduated from high school, they “were aspirational for their children” and encouraged them to go to college. Novak applied to the prestigious Cleveland Institute of Art, but was not accepted. Instead, he attended Cleveland State University and majored in history and social studies. Soon he was working at his alma mater in the career center, forging the path that would ultimately bring him to UNC Charlotte in 2011 to become associate director of career services.
Novak loved the job and witnessing “the tremendous growth” of the university and the Career Center, he said. He is passionate about internships and career development programs for students. But even through that success and satisfaction, his artistic potential prodded him.
“I really wanted to get an art education, to see how I would compete with my fellow students and get faculty feedback.”
At first the other art students didn’t know what to make of him.
At first the other art students didn’t know what to make of him, he said. “The first week in illustration class, no one would talk to me. One student came up at the end of the week and introduced himself, and that broke the ice.”
It was during a 2025 study abroad trip to Ireland, though, that Novak finally felt fully integrated.
“Ireland was a beautiful experience. I stayed at Burren College of Art with the students, and that changed everybody’s perspective of me.”
Novak was one of 11 students on the trip, led by art professors Jane Dalton and Aspen Hochhalter.
“We were thrilled that Jim joined our pilgrimage to Ireland this past summer,” said Hochhalter. “Over two weeks, living and working closely together, the students quickly formed a tight-knit, supportive community. They cooked, shared meals and explored the village as a group. Jim was an integral and valued part of this wonderful dynamic, and we couldn’t imagine the trip’s success without his contribution!”
In his art, Novak favors realism over abstraction, and he is particularly drawn to portraiture. During the pandemic, when he was preparing his portfolio to be fully admitted into the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree program, he would go once a week to Bad Daddy’s Burger Bar, where he would eat, drink and sketch in isolation.
One of the servers there reminded him of the barmaid in Manet’s famous 1882 painting, “Un Bar aux Folies-Bergère” (“A Bar at the Folies-Bergère”). Five years later, she became the central figure in his final thesis project, “La folie du telephone portable” (“Cell Phone Folly”), a collection of oil paintings that depict various people in another local eatery, Midwood Smokehouse. Cell phone use is prominent.
“I seek to draw parallels between 19th-century Paris and 21st-century Charlotte, as both cities confront the complexities of modernity,” Novak wrote in his artist statement. “My work invites the viewer to reflect on and ask questions about ‘modernity’ in our era.”
“Jim is a great student,” said Associate Professor of Painting Andrew Leventis. “All the professors have really enjoyed having him in class. His commitment to his studies is a tremendously positive influence on our students.”
Novak says that the structure and purpose he found in pursuing the art degree allowed him to transition smoothly into retirement. And while he has been struck by “how challenging an art career is,” he is gratified to have both realized his youthful dream and to be starting a new, creative career.
“If I had to do it all over, I would have gotten an art degree. I just didn’t know at 17 that I had the brains and talent to do this.”