Throughout the year, students are provided with opportunities to utilize their talents in ways that enrich the community as well as increase their understanding of what the community has to offer. Imagination, creativity, and vision in the civic arena are all nurtured through a variety of programs integrated into the curriculum through service learning, as well as through co-curricular programs. Faculty members interest in service learning has increased greatly over the past few years, and participation in communityARTworks during Orientation stimulates that interest both for faculty and students. Service learning has been utilized in a range of disciplines.

This past semester, a course, called “”Navajo of the Southwest,”" was jointly developed by a professor of Anthropology and the Associate Dean of Students. Students studied the art and culture of the Navajo, as well as the history and the current social, political and economic issues. As a part of the curriculum, the class traveled to New Mexico for an Alternative Spring Break, working with Navajo children on the reservation to create a collaborative mural. Before leaving for New Mexico, students also learned about issues of diversity and culture while engaged in service, basic group process theory, and tools for successful collaboration. Over seventy students applied for the fifteen spaces available in this class, which was an overwhelming success. Through relationships developed with Navajo while in New Mexico, students became aware of the issues surrounding uranium mining on the reservation, and continue to be activists in working to gain compensation for Navajo who contracted cancer as a result of their work in the mines.

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