This signature program offers project-based courses that match multidisciplinary teams of students with local and international community partners. Creative Action courses will introduce you to pressing environmental and social issues through partnerships with nonprofit organizations and public agencies. Through research, leadership, and collaboration, you will focus your creativity on real-world problems. These skills are essential to your career as an artist or designer.
Program Learning Outcomes
Creative Action classes carry thematic and pedagogical linkages between the various semesters, but they also uniquely focus on specific skill sets corresponding to the different grade levels.
Creative Action has 5 overarching Program Learning Outcomes (PLO) that are further dissected into Class Learning Outcomes (CLO). The PLOs are in place to provide students with a series of collaborative experiences that extend beyond the boundaries of the majors, integrate disciplinary skills and knowledge, and are sited within a public context.
Students will:
- Negotiate diverse public spheres.
- Work in interdisciplinary teams.
- Develop trans-disciplinary problem-solving skills.
- Conceptualize, analyze, and define issues and solutions.
- Plan and propose creative solutions for a specific context, informed by engagement with a community group.
Foundation-Year Creative Action Course Learning Outcomes
The foundation-level course is a module imbedded in a larger color theory class named “Connections Through Color.” Students work in teams to analyze, concept, and problem-solve directly with a site partner. They are exposed to best practices as well as successful case studies in multidisciplinary collaboration. The foundation year teaches through participant observation, with students visiting partner sites as well as interacting with guest speakers and one another.
Students will:
- Work in teams to conceptualize, analyze, and problem-solve in relation to the site/partner.
- Introduce students to best practices for working in teams.
- Learn through the context of working in public spheres.
- Introduce students to trans-disciplinary investigation.
- Respond to an issue and/or site using skills and concepts based on the 2-D curriculum.
Sophomore Creative Action Course Learning Outcomes
The sophomore CA class is offered in the College’s Liberal Arts and Sciences Program (LAS).
Students will:
- Practice context-driven research (in terms of history, culture, and/or politics).
- Develop collaborative skills.
- Develop communication skills.
- Develop an awareness of cultural difference.
- Demonstrate a respect for the diversity of ideas.
Junior Creative Action Course Learning Outcomes
The junior level CA classes are the ultimate culmination of the skills learned at the foundation and sophomore level.
Students will:
- Practice in engaging with a community group.
- Practice project-driven research.
- Cultivate an awareness of social responsibility.
- Introduce students to an understanding of ethical impacts of art and design.
- Negotiate the complexity of design through its context.
- Use trans-disciplinary methods of solving problems.
- Introduce students to project management methods.
Assessment Measures
Student learning in Liberal Arts and Sciences courses is assessed using level-appropriate rubrics and evaluations of examinations, research papers, projects, reflections, and presentations as well as Departmental Programmatic Assessment projects. Collectively these measures allow us to determine the level and quality of education attained by our students.