Campus Compact » Program Models Arts In Service Programs

Project SYKES: Successful Youth Knowledgeable & Eager for Service

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L.B. Sykes-Lanett Junior High School in Lanett, Alabama, was awarded $4,990.00 for their Learn and Serve project called Project SYKES: Successful Youth Knowledgeable & Eager for Service. Project SYKES incorporates service activities into required classes as well as clubs and organizations. The organizations and projects include:

1. National Honor Society sponsors peer tutoring.
2. The Drama Class sponsors theatrical productions and a summer theater workshop. Students perform for community groups and other schools in the district. The summer theater workshop is planned for elementary age children in the community.

Operation Bridgeport “”immersion”" weekends

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While service-learning is growing across the country, the majority of faculty at most universities still have little or no experience with it. At many universities, the single largest obstacle to faculty involvement may not be that faculty are reluctant or resistant, but simply that they have not heard of the possibility. The first introduction, then, can be a critical moment to gain support from those faculty who are willing to be innovative and lead the way in service-learning on campus, often referred to as the first wave of change.

Operation Bridgeport was organized by Phyllis Macklett, the director of community service, at Sacred Heart University as a method of introducing faculty not only to service-learning, but also to the neighborhood. While Sacred Heart draws a considerable portion of its student body from the neighboring community of Bridgeport, few faculty members live in the area. As a result, faculty are largely unfamiliar with the neighborhood, which is in the most poverty-stricken district in the state. Through Operation Bridgeport, a small group of faculty spend a weekend in downtown Bridgeport at the St. Charles Urban Center to learn more about the lives of the people who live just outside the place where they teach.

The program begins with a guided bus tour, narrated by a Sacred Heart professor, that transports faculty from the richest parts of the city to the impoverished downtown area. After arriving downtown, faculty meet with the leaders of community organizations from the area, between doing service work in the neighborhood at Habitat for Humanity sites, food pantries, or youth centers.

Sunday morning brings a unique twist, when faculty members cook breakfast for Sacred Heart students who live in some of the most impoverished sections of Bridgeport. After the breakfast, students deliver a presentation to faculty on their experiences growing up and living in Bridgeport. According to Ms. Macklett, the presentations never fail to move faculty members, many of whom were previously unaware of the hardships faced by some of their students.

A faculty-administration brainstorming session that comes at the end of the weekend brings ideas from faculty excited about new possibilities. In the past, faculty have suggested new courses and new community activities for Sacred Heart. The outgrowth of one weekend was a free Grassroots Leadership Training Seminar Series for community leaders from Bridgeport. Faculty involved in the series gave seminars on grantwriting, communication skills, and group organizing.

Several faculty who attend the weekend have gone on to incorporate service-learning and community engagement into their classes. Dr. John DeGraffenried, one faculty member introduced to service-learning in the first Operation Bridgeport, now offers free after-school art classes as a community service in high schools in Bridgeport and neighboring towns. He ends each year with an art show. Bridgeport youth who once would have never come to Sacred Heart University s campus have their art on display there; Sacred Heart faculty who once would have never met these youth, see the work that the youth produced under the tutelage of a fellow faculty member.

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

For more information: http://www.sacredheart.edu/mission/service/lead-serv/OpBpt/

“”Beyond El Gran Capoquero”": high school students learn Spanish skills via Drama while providing community service to K-2 Spanish students

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

“”Beyond El Gran Capoquero”" (The Great Kapok Tree) extends SAIL’s 1997-98 interdisciplinary project whereby high school students acquire conversational Spanish skills via Drama while providing community service to K-2 Spanish students. That project’s success, our desire to capitalize on the strong oral presentation/drama skills of SAIL students and the support of our school improvement plan (expansion of hands-on, applied experiential learning and a greater emphasis on community service for our students) encouraged us to continue.

First semester included joint lesson planning, student training in Spanish, Drama, and Early Childhood Education teaching techniques, and development of student-produced curriculum implementation activities. SAIL students met with Ruediger second-grade students four times (informal “”icebreakers”", discussion of rainforest animals and habitats, and painting murals used as scenery for the first-grade students’ second-semester performance). Second semester included SAIL students meeting ten times with the first-graders, teaching Spanish dialogue, drama and movement techniques, mask making, and performance preparation. There were four performances: one, early in the project, with SAIL students showing the Ruediger students “”how it’s done”"; one, near the end, with all the students, for Ruediger parents and students; and two joint-cast productions, one for the “”Celebrate the Arts Festival”" at Gretchen Everhart School for Exceptional Students and one opportunity to entertain and exchange ideas with visitors from the Ecuadorian rainforest.

SAIL students provided approximately 700 hours of community service (including travel and preparation) and helped develop replicable curriculum materials. All students stayed enrolled in the program and took seriously their responsibilities as teachers and role models. There is positive anecdotal feedback from Everhart, Ruedigerand SAIL staff and plans to continue the Spanish/Drama curriculum and Ruediger/SAIL relationship. We may also pursue ways to replicate and use this Learn and Serve project as a model to implement the Sunshine State Standards for Foreign Language instruction for high school and elementary students and for using authentic assessment for evaluation.

“”In Harmony”": developing a caring intergenerational link

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

IN HARMONY is a project that has established a service learning program within our inner city schools while establishing an intergenerational link between our 480 at risk students and 500 senior citizens at a nearby, non-profit, HUD subsidized retirement home. Our students are meeting actual community needs while extending student learning beyond the classroom. The students visit the retirement home each month to present interactive programs of newly acquired academic skills. IN HARMONY incorporates art, music, P.E., and drama to enhance what is taught in the academic curriculum. This program fosters the development of a sense of caring for others as the students share songs, games, stories, dances, art projects, and much more with the elderly and disabled residents from the senior citizen facility.

Children’s Theatre tour brings “”artful”" activities to elementary schools

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For our Spring semester, as their Senior thesis project, four actors put together a Children’s Theatre tour of folk and fairy tales that they wrote, produced, performed and toured to local area elementary schools which were very desperate for “”artful”" activities to supplement their curriculum. The performers then met the children after each performance and answered questions. These students worked for me at my professional summer theatre in Lincoln, New Hampshire where we tour Children’s Theatre throughout the state. ( http://www.papermilltheatre.org/ ) One of the students wrote the scripts and most of the music last summer for these original musicals which bring these fairy/folk tales to life!

We were fortunate to receive a Servant Leadership grant from LC so as to offer this service to the community free of charge. We are also entertaining the possibility in the near future of “”Classical Scenes in the Schools”" (similar to many professional outreach programs) where we would tour scenes from classics to teens and have a follow up Q and A on issues and impressions.

Partners in Art: a new theater for high school students

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Thanks to a group of enthusiastic team workers our community as a whole will be greatly enriched. Owing to a combined effort of our local Arts Guild, Construction students, who were responsible for designing and building a brand new performance-art interior for our local movie theater and a 6th Period Drama class, our community now has a top notch, state of the art theatre that the entire community and county can take pride in. The students profit greatly from the experience because it provides a setting (The Magnolia Theatre) that inspires them more so than a normal classroom environment. They are taught the history of the theater, all aspects of stagecraft (including lighting and sound), and lastly they are given the opportunity to improvise and perform. They spend a total of 180 hours in this “”classroom”". Not only do the students attend classes in the theater they are also custodians, who maintain and cleanup the facility for various performances. They operate the sound and lighting equipment and act as House Manager and staff for school-related performances. All the students find the experience to be greatly rewarding.

Mural project with prisoners from Anamosa State Prison

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Art professor Doug Hanson has fifteen years of experience using art therapy to work with incarcerated individuals. In the spring of 1998 in a course on drawing and ceramics, Professor Hanson and seventeen students worked with selected prisoners from the Anamosa State Prison on an art project which connected both communities. Students and prisoners designed and fired ceramic tiles which would later be used to create two large-scale murals at the prison and at the college. Emphasizing the cooperative theme of the project, half of the students work was used in the mural at the prison, and half of the prisoners work was used in the mural at the college.

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

Contact: The Art Department at art {at} cornellcollege(.)edu

Pre-school classroom mural project

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When Professor Ursula McCarty wanted to help students in her course on Feminist Art see the dramatic effect art can have even in the simplest of settings, she introduced them to a new group of art patrons: a class of pre-schoolers. Professor McCarty brought her students to a local community center where children in the local HeadStart program had an empty wall just outside their classroom that they wanted filled. The students met with the preschoolers to discuss their ideas for the ten-foot mural. Once the group settled on a design from airports to dinosaurs the work began. Students visited the classroom regularly, interacting with the children as they designed the mural and painted it over the course of several weeks.

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

Contact: Professor Christina McOmber at cmcomber {at} cornellcollege(.)edu or (319) 895-4137

Art on the Edge program: ceramics students work with homeless children

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

In the spring of 1997, an Introduction to Ceramics class, taught by Lisa Lynes at North Idaho College, enlisted students as tutors in a local program called Art on the Edge. Through the program students in the class worked in an after-school setting with children living in the local St. Vincent DePaul Homeless Shelter. Students helped the children create original ceramic projects which were later fired by the arts department at the college. Several students commented that it was an eye-opening experience to work so closely with children who were living under such harsh conditions.

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

Theatre Outreach Program to Schools (T.O.P.S.) – Hedda Gabler

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The Black Hawk College current grant-funded Theatre Outreach Program to Schools, co-sponsored by the Illinois Campus Compact for Community Service, the BHC Creative Arts Department, the Office of the President, and the BHC Foundation has accomplished the following: Over 160, 22-page Study Guides, on the play HEDDA GABLER, a modern Social Drama, were sent to area Junior and Senior High schools. Selected students from Moline High School and United Township High School, were given a special performance the BHC-HEDDA GABLER production, involved in lunch and a lunch-time discussion of the play, then they were involved in conflict-resolution workshops over a one-week period, using the play as spring-board for exercises and discussions. Extensive surveys were conducted with all participants (including Service-Learning students from BHC) to measure the value of the play and workshops, and the high school students have each sent Appraisal Letters, applying criteria that was taught in the workshops. The number of Selected Students from those two high schools was 120 total.

Teens With Attitude (TWA)

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Teens With Altitude (TWA) is a sociodrama designed to address community problems of drug abuse, teen pregnancy, fire, safety, and gangs. The sociodrama is presented through music, skits, puppetry, poetry, and black light performances. It will strengthen social and resiliency skills of children and youth to exhibit appropriate social behavior, to use safe and healthful practices with their peers, to refuse to become involved with drugs and gangs, and to refuse to become teenage parents.

A president promotes the concept of “”citizen/artist”"

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Massachusetts College of Art is the only public, independent college of art and design in the United States. Located in an inner city neighborhood in Boston, the College s mission encompasses the goals of providing higher education in the arts to benefit the public, and encouraging its students, faculty and staff to actively participate in the surrounding community. Throughout its history, MassArt has engaged in a variety of visual arts teaching and learning programs, which provide outreach to the City s residents.

Under the leadership of President Katherine Sloan, who came to the College in 1996, MassArt s outreach to the community and education of students on issues of citizenship have vastly increased. President Sloan has actively promoted the concept of the “”citizen/artist,”" and encouraged students to view themselves as global citizens uniquely situated as artists able to make valuable contributions to the world around them. She increased the role of Student Affairs by expanding the Office of Student and Community Development, the mission of which is to provide students, faculty and staff with opportunities that develop positive values, artistic visions, and personal growth while addressing the needs of the community beyond MassArt. Students are encouraged to learn through the citizen/artist model and explore social issues through solutions based in the visual arts.

Contact: President Katherine Sloan at ksloan {at} massart(.)edu or school website at www.massart.edu

Annual Reading Festival: a fun-filled literacy based event for children

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

One program that we are especially proud of and that truly exemplifies many of the goals of the Campus Assessment is our Reading Festival. The Festival, now a campus tradition, was developed just three years ago as part of our Community Service Program and was specifically designed to meet a real need in the growing Franklin Community. The Festival takes place during public school vacation week and brings children from the ages of 3-8 to campus for a fun-filled literacy based event. Each Reading Festival is a bit different so those children that participate can do so each vacation and experience something different. Participants have enjoyed story hours, puppet shows, photos with characters from children s books, arts & crafts, creative movement sessions, dance presentations by “”Project Concern”", snacks and prizes. Each Festival has a theme and everything is tied to the theme. All children that attend the Reading Festival leave the program with an age appropriate book, bookmark, pencils, erasers, etc. Since we know that family members are critical to their children s development, we have also sponsored seminars for them on topics such as raising readers. The Reading Festival is free and each program is capped at 350 children. We have now hosted six programs and they have all been filled to capacity with a waiting list!

What is so special about this program is that, although it is organized by a college staff member, it is a true community effort. Over the years, the program has been supported by the Franklin Community Center, the local elementary schools, large corporations with offices in Franklin including Putnam Investments and Garelik Farms, Franklin residents, local business owners and Dean College faculty, staff and students. These community members have given gifts in kind, grants, and offered discounts on items we have needed to purchase. Also, many have volunteered their time the day of the event. The leadership of the College has encouraged all members to participate and we have had a wonderful response. Faculty, staff and students have volunteered to serve as storytellers, arts & crafts group leaders, check-in assistants, and snack and prize distributors. In addition, some members of the Dean community have engaged groups of students to participate. For example, one year a faculty member and her entire Children s Literature class worked on the story hours. Another year, the entire Men s Basketball team volunteered their time, and members of Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society did fundraising to cover the cost of providing each student with a book to take home. All of our Community Service Scholarship Students also give between 5 15 hours of their time to planning and implementing these programs.

We advertise the programs through notices that are sent home with students through the elementary schools and through press releases in the local papers. We have received a great deal of positive press coverage from these events and the Franklin community now relies on the College to provide these types of reading programs for the Franklin youth. In addition, we receive many letters of thanks from Franklin families that have participated in the program.

“”Art and Community”" and other courses: individual projects based on community needs and artistic goals

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

MassArt offers a class which engages students across all majors in service learning. Called “”Art and Community,”" students develop individual projects based on community needs and their own artistic goals, and implement them over a ten week period. Now in its third year, projects have included a glass major working with urban teens to create glass tiles for their youth center, a painting major teaching drawing classes to female prison inmates, and an art history major bringing children from public housing on weekly visits to art museums. Other service learning classes include a graphic design class working with a community based youth agency to create brochures and posters, an illustration class creating illustrations, which will be used in a calendar to raise money for the neighborhood, and a wood sculpture class building a twelve-foot gazebo for a homeless shelter. A freshman class on Color Theory also worked with a homeless shelter for residents with mental illness, and created a mural utilizing their knowledge. In all of these cases, students were inspired to continue their involvement with the community in greater depth once the classes were over.

Website: http://www.massart.edu/at_massart/ (“”Community Partnerships”" is in the left sidebar)

Co-curricular art-based community programs

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Through co-curricular programs, students have the opportunity to work outside the classroom on art-based community programs.

One example is a team of six students who worked with an anti-youth violence agency to create a “”national peace sculpture”" made out of five thousand toy guns turned in by children across the country. The sculpture is a permanent installation at the Capitol Children s Museum in Washington DC.

Students also coordinate an after-school program for second graders, and serve as mentors. Called “”Sharing Our Stories,”" this America Reads program was designed by the College to improve the literacy skills of children through the visual arts. Each year, forty children write stories based on their own lives, and with the help of MassArt students, illustrate and bind them into books.

Many MassArt students work on creating murals in collaboration with community agencies throughout the City. Recent mural sites include a Salvation Army daycare center and a pediatric oncology center. All service programs offered by the College provide students with opportunities for meaningful reflection on both issues and their goals for themselves as artists and citizens.

Website: http://www.massart.edu/at_massart/ (“”Community Partnerships”" is in the left sidebar)

“”CommunityARTworks”": a day of community art projects for entering students

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

On entering the College, students begin their MassArt experience with “”communityARTworks”", a full day of community art projects based on a service-learning model. Students work in teams; each team has two student leaders, a faculty volunteer, and a staff volunteer. Projects have included painting educational murals in a daycare center, painting old playground equipment with bright colors, or painting a map of the United States and Caribbean islands on an asphalt schoolyard. This year, the project will be an “”art carnival”" for over five hundred children living in the public housing development located near the College. Students are educated about the underlying issues for each project prior to the day of the program. The projects are developed based on community needs and the College works in collaboration with community members. At the end of the day, each team spends time in guided reflection, and then shares their thoughts with the entire group. They are also provided with information about continuing their involvement with the community.

Website: http://www.massart.edu/at_massart/ (“”Community Service-Learning”" is in the left sidebar)

Holiday cheer: the Bead Project

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The initiative for a one-day event often derives from a holiday. The Bead Project at Massachusetts College of Art is an intensive jewelry-making enterprise held at Christmas time. Last year, students fashioned four hundred pieces of jewelry out of thousands of donated beads. The jewelry was then given to neighborhood women as holiday gifts. Christmas success sparked a second bead extravaganza for Mother s Day, when students worked with local children to turn homemade jewelry into Mother s Day gifts.

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

Website: Under Co-Curricular Activities in the Service Learning section of http://www.massart.edu/at_massart/

Portrait of a Century: a portrait project of Boston community leaders

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Communities can become closer when they have a place to gather and celebrate their accomplishments. Through art and stories, students, faculty, and alumni from the Massachusetts College of Art began an ambitious project to transform local museums and community centers in Boston into public spaces that celebrate the dedication of Bostonians to their community. One hundred students, faculty, and alumni were paired with Boston community leaders, one born in each year from 1900 to 1999. Community leaders, chosen on the basis of the contributions they have made and the obstacles they have overcome, were interviewed and had their portraits painted by their college partners. The portraits and interviews were then showcased around Boston.

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

Website: http://www.massart.edu/at_massart/ under “”Community Service Learning”" then “”Co- Curricular Activities”".

The Art in Service internship

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Internships can provide opportunities for learning and service without the academic tie. The Art in Service internship at the Maine College of Art is overseen by a coordinator as a year-long internship or independent study. Interns spend fifteen hours weekly on site, and a minimum of two hours preparing. The coordinator meets with students and their supervisors three times each semester: first to plan the internship, then to observe progress, and finally to assess impact.

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

Contact: info {at} meca(.)edu

High school drama department’s Medieval Festival

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The drama department’s contribution to the service-learning program at this school is the Medieval Festival it organizes, involving most departments in the high school as well as the community. This event is a cross curricular project, including parental involvement, concentrating on a past time period. Students research medieval times while focusing on originality and creativity in the areas of literature, music, art, family life, health, and sports of the time period. Students apply academic skills and research by writing historically plausible scripts and music. All areas of the curriculum are involved including business and commerce with ticket sales and guild booths at the festival.