The 36-credit master’s program, spanning two summers and one academic year, is grounded in the principles of social justice. Students investigate the relationship of the citizen artist and art to community building through dialogue with community members, leaders in government and nonprofit organizations, and professional community artists. Real-world experiences are supported by classroom study of community arts theory and practice, and seminars that help students build professional skills such as grant-writing and build a professional portfolio of their work as community-based artists. Throughout the program, students continue to make their own public/community-based artwork.

During the academic year, students, supported by program faculty and coursework, are placed as full-time resident artists with community organizations, where they work with community leaders to conceive, implement, and manage projects and programs that engage children, youth, and adults in meaningful art experiences; design and implement projects and events that support community initiatives; document and assess the effectiveness of their projects in meeting community interests; and gain hands-on experience in fundraising, curriculum planning, and arts management. The acquisition of core concept and skill courses and independent learning opportunities, are key to defining new paradigms for public/community artmaking.

Students complete 9 credits in the first summer, 9 credits each semester during the academic year, and 9 credits in the final summer.

Contact:
Ken Krafchek, Director, MA in Community Arts Program
Telephone – 410-225-2587
FAX – 410-225-2574
E-mail – kkrafchekMACA {at} aol(.)com

Additional information on this fellowship program can be found online at http://www.lmu.edu/colleges/cba/mba/peacecorps.htm.

In high-quality service-learning activities, reflection is not something that occurs at one isolated point in time. Rather, reflection permeates the service experience, and helps every participant to learn and be open to learning at every stage in the process.

Reflection, then, starts even before the service effort starts, when a teacher or facilitator decides how the service experience will be defined. Is service seen as a way for students to gain experience in a particular field or area of expertise? Is it described as a way to meet diverse populations and build community? Is it framed in terms of relationships? of religious principles? of democratic values?

In the Education by Design program at Antioch New England Graduate School, the service experience is framed as a challenge in finding solutions. Known as Problem-Based Service Learning (PBSL), this approach puts the student in the role of problem solver.

Once the service project has been framed within a particular model, students need a strong foundation to build upon. PBSL students engage in a series of experiential loops. These are small-scale exercises in which students practice the steps of identifying and addressing a problem. Students work in teams and engage in interviews as a form of capacity building. This helps students hone their decision-making, collaboration, and critical thinking skills.

Framed around problem-solving, and given a strong foundation, the structure of the service project grows from there. In PBSL, the effort starts with finding out what the problem is. Although many forms of service-learning offer students community problems that have long since been identified, this would undermine the reflection component of Problem-Based Service Learning. PBSL students meet with people in the community and talk to them to find out what problems they feel need fixing. Rather than looking at these people as service recipients, in PBSL they are appropriately described as clients, people who have enlisted the services of others to help solve problems that they cannot solve alone.

In the course of identifying problems, PBSL students build communication skills, and inevitably reflect upon the issues that they are discussing. This way of looking at things continues to inform students service activities as they engage in other stages of Problem-Based Service Learning, focused on such areas as: problem statement, project management, and assessment/exhibition of learning.

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

For more information: http://www.edbydesign.org/pbsl/pbsl.html

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

This service experience focuses on contributions individuals make beyond their professional role. It will enable students to begin to internalize their roles as service-oriented citizens and health care professionals. Service experiences will include, but not be limited to working with a disadvantaged, under-served or cross-cultural population. Students will demonstrate social responsibility, citizenship, and advocacy, including participation in community and human service organizations and activities. Students will expand their perception and understanding of health and illness and the variety of meanings these terms carry for members of differing groups.

In the past four years, students have served 63 sites in 12 states and 4 countries. Sites have ranged from the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Deschapelles, Haiti to the Ecumenical Women Solidarity Fund in Zagreb, Croatia, to the Center for Creative Play in Pittsburgh.

Online at http://www.chatham.edu/academic/pt/physther1.htm