ENGAGE at CCA is an innovative initiative combining California College of the Arts Community Arts Program’s successful model of community engagement with the project-based learning approach of the architecture and design disciplines.

Activated across academic programs, ENGAGE at CCA serves as a hub to connect interested faculty and students to community partners and relevant outside experts. Read about specific ENGAGE at CCA projects.

About ENGAGE at CCA

Housed at the Center for Art and Public Life, ENGAGE at CCA dynamically advances CCA’s mission to prepare its students for lifelong creative work and service to their communities through a curriculum in fine art, architecture, design, and creative writing. As is typical of our partner locations, all the below-listed organizations are located in diverse, under-resourced neighborhoods.

Current (Spring) 2010 ENGAGE at CCA Courses

Ceramics: Environmental aesthetic design modules will protect sea bird nests from being inadvertently crushed by sea lions on the beaches of Año Nuevo Island. In collaboration with REBAR Art, Design and Activism Studio Group and advisory ecologists, Ceramics faculty member Nathan Lynch leads the course to design nesting modules to be adopted by and protective to the eggs of the Rhinoceros Auklets, a sea bird considered threatened. See photos of the nesting modules in progress and read more about the Año Nuevo Island Restoration Project.

Community Arts: Faculty member Virginia Jardim teaches her continuing Athena Project, a course that gives Community Arts students the opportunity to mentor youth through the arts. Through pertinent readings, discussions, journaling, and visits from guest speakers, The Athena Project prepares CCA students to become leaders in arts education. Students work with Friends of Peralta Hacienda Historic Park to acquire concepts, skills, and information necessary for becoming successful advocates, mentors, or counselors. Weekly partnering with Bay Area youth allows CCA students to create collaborative art projects.

Diversity Studies: Home Grown: Art and the Environment will pair CCA mentors with teens enrolled at San Francisco's Mission High School. Diversity Studies adjunct professor Lauren Elder leads students to focus on issues of sustainability through the lens of the students' primary creative mediums, culminating in one or more environmental projects at Mission High School.

Art in the Public Interest is another Diversity Studies course that takes a new look at the power of art in addressing contemporary social issues as they relate to public education. CCA Diversity Studies faculty member Amana Harris, also director of ArtEsteem (watch the YouTube video), will lead CCA students to investigate spiritual and ethical renewal, as well as social responsiveness and environmental transformation, as methods employed by a growing movement of activist artists. The course collaborates with a community-based organization, Attitudinal Healing Connection of Oakland, and assesses the current needs of the community in the context of art and public education in partnership.

Furniture: Under Furniture faculty member Russell Baldon, site-specific furniture is designed and built for the courtyard of Lighthouse Charter School's new location. CCA students work with the high school students, present their own furniture design processes, and share what it's like to be a student at CCA. Keep up with the progress of the project on their blog.

Industrial Design: A feasibility report is delivered to the Bethany Center Senior Housing. Students in this CCA Industrial Design course, taught by faculty member Rachel Robinette, work with a geriatric physiologist, and research and experience the site firsthand to create the report. Professional advisor Patricia Moore has been brought on to undertake an extensive investigation of the Bethany Center Senior Housing and create a report with suggestions for how to improve its communications and systems.

Sculpture: World War II convalescing soldiers were taught craft traditions that are all but forgotten. SFMOMA's long history with being connected to the Veterans Association is explored while CCA students under Sculpture Program faculty Allison Smith collaborate with the museum's education department focusing on those crafts.

SMART Teaching Concentration: Students in the SMART (Subject Matter Art) Teaching Concentration investigate the process of developing an outstanding art program—from the nuts and bolts of classroom management and setup to the creative pursuit of creating a lesson and assessment tool. This hands-on course, led by faculty member Trena Noval, encourages CCA students to share ideas and critical thoughts with the group. Students also reflect on and revise their personal philosophy statements created and develop a teaching portfolio that shows how these ideas can be applied within the Emery Secondary School classroom setting.

Writing and Literature: 826 Valencia Book Project will publish an anthology of personal essays, created through the collaborative efforts of CCA's Writing and Literature students (mentors) and John O'Connell High School students (mentees). Program chair Aimee Phan works with students who contribute to the conception, editing, design, and layout of the book. They also experience the responsibilities, rewards, and challenges of mentorship and education in an urban environment, combining students' writing skills with community service. In addition to classroom mentoring, Writing and Literature students also serve on the book's editorial board and participate in other literary community projects.