Overview
The Creative Community Development graduate minor is offered through the College of Performing Arts.
Grounded in the history of artists in place and community arts methods and theories, the Creative Community Development graduate minor brings together artists, power, and place. It is designed to prepare students to employ artists and artistic practices and programming as key strategies and tools with which to address community needs. Courses provide models for engaging with communities in a variety of roles. In particular, students taking this minor will examine the expanding range of ways performing artists, media artists, writers, and visual artists work with government agencies, private developers, NGOs (including those working in housing, transportation, environmental sustainability, prison justice, and food) to analyze, dismantle, reimagine, and revive place-based institutions and systems and rebuild them to make them more equitable, healthy, and sustainable.
This minor provides a pathway for artists and non-artists alike to develop the necessary skills and knowledge to build collaborative longer-term relationships and programs and do this important work. The minor is offered in the recognition that people and creativity are two vital local resources that all communities have and that they can be deployed to encourage more effective and more systemic approaches to community development.
Click here to watch
the webinar Artists, Power & Place, the launch event
for the new graduate minor. The event was held on April 8, 2020, and
panelists included Yesmin Vega (WHEDco), Marty Pottenger (artist/activist),
Sarah Calderon (ArtPlace America), and Juanli Carrión (Parsons School of
Design).
Curriculum
This graduate minor requires successful completion of nine
credits. All students (except those in the MA Arts Management and
Entrepreneurship program) are required to take 1) Artists and Community Change, 2)
Creative Skills for Community Development, 3) Community Development Finance Lab, and 4) one elective in the subject area Place and Civic
Imaginaries.*
It is recommended that students take the foundational courses Artists and Community Change and Creative Skills for Community Development first if possible. Students outside of the MA Arts Management and Entrepreneurship program should request permission for these courses via the CoPA Permission form in MyNewSchool.
Course availability may vary from semester to semester. Some courses may be in development and offered at a later time. Students seeking to pursue alternative coursework to fulfill the minor should consult with their advisors.
Students in the MA in Arts Management and Entrepreneurship who wish to complete the Graduate Minor in Creative Community Development are required to take 1) Community Development Finance Lab, and 2) two additional electives in the subject area Place and Civic Imaginaries, since Artists and Community Change is already a core requirement in the MA Arts Management and Entrepreneurship.
Learning Outcomes
A student who has completed this graduate minor should be able to:
- Effectively reflect on and use concepts related to the theory and practice of such movements as artists in place and community, social and civic practice art, and arts for social justice
- Identify the interrelated systems, institutions, and people that create and sustain a place
- Discern and demonstrate how and why artists and arts and culture can be effective allies and tools for equitable community planning and development
- Successfully conceive and co-design an artistic intervention to achieve equitable community development goals and conduct related work with communities
Eligibility
The Creative Community Development minor is available to all graduate students at The New School.
Interested graduate
students should consult with their Student Success advisor. The College of
Performing Arts Student Success advisor is Knox Sutterfield at [email protected].
For any other
questions about the graduate minor, including the curriculum and opportunities
for faculty to be part of the graduate minor, please email [email protected].