CCA's Community Arts Program is an interdisciplinary, community-based approach to creative practice that draws on the resources of the Center for Art and Public Life. Students explore how artists interact, collaborate, and intervene in a variety of social networks while committing themselves to build sustainable community relationships, engage cultural diversity, and stimulate social transformation.

Students study the history of community arts and draw from a wide range of cultural theories and practices in art, critical studies, art education, service learning, and civic engagement. Encouraged to experiment with new genres, mediums, and technologies, participants create a unique set of hybrid practices, adding innovative thinking and ideas to the community arts field. Students select a specific practice methodology that includes studio, art education, community engagement, and/or arts management.

The curriculum combines coursework in the humanities and sciences with studios, courses in arts administration and cultural diversity, and a required internship. Students will graduate with an understanding of how historical, social, economic, and political factors relate to community art.

Students will also acquire the necessary skills, conceptual thinking, and professional experience to fulfill their creative potential and make art for, in, and with the community.

Community Arts students may participate in the SMART (Subject Matter Art) teaching concentration program, which meets the basic entry requirements for postgraduate, state-approved teacher credentialing programs.