Course Announcement, Fall 2013

Diedra Krieger Plastic Fantastic (2013), installed at the Rotunda 

Penn community members have, in various ways, been using the arts as a way to bridge the gap between the University and its locale. Examples include Carol Muller and Timothy Rommen’s West Philadelphia Music Project, in which Penn students learned about and documented African musical strains from the neighborhood; Shira Walinsky’s Southeast by Southeast, a storefront art center that serves the immigrant population in South Philadelphia; Herman Beavers’ Literatures of Jazz, which uses Philadelphia’s jazz culture to teach students about modernism in Black literature; and the Rotunda and AIRSpace, two community-driven programs that use Penn-owned buildings to cultivate performing and visual arts, respectively.

While these projects have been running for some time and have shown measurable success, their stakeholders have rarely come together to share best practices and discuss benefits to the community. In light of changes to arts funding in Philadelphia and the desire of the University to position itself as a leader in the arts, it would be of great benefit to study the community-focused arts project, so that partners can foster cohesive operation and better explain their successes to the public. This course, and its related faculty seminar, will be a forum for such study.

Course Announcement: Community Partnerships in Arts and Education

In an era of budget cutting, how do we bring art to the classroom and community?

Find out how universities, schools and non-profits collaborate to cultivate the arts
Evaluate and build arts partnerships in Penn’s neighborhood

EDUC 501.001, fall 2012
Community Partnerships in Arts and Education
University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Education
Instructor: Edward M. Epstein | Thursdays 12-2 pm

Students in this class will gain firsthand knowledge of the significance and workings of community arts partnerships. The course will explore the notion of art as an incubator for development, both of the individual mind and the surrounding community. Through reading, research, and actual practice participants will understand the effect of placing artists in schools as well as community organizations that have an educational mission. During the first part of the term, students will observe and evaluate arts outreach projects already in progress. The instructor will then ask each student to become a project coordinator, organizing, managing, and evaluating an arts partnership of his or her own. Partnerships may involve K-12 teachers, community organizations or neighborhood public art projects. The class will connect students with visual artists from the 40th St. Artist-in-Residence (AIRSpace) program, as well as performing artists from the Annenberg Center and the Rotunda. This course is designated as Academic-based Community Service (ABCS), meaning that students will be evaluated partly on their work in the community.