Creative arts and Learning partnership initiatives

Mission

Community Partnership Initiatives for Lesley University's Creative Arts and Learning (CAL) Division grows out of the division's commitment to forge meaningful links and learning opportunities in the communities where we teach and operate. CAL's Community Partnership Initiatives delivers socially responsive integrated arts programming in a variety of formats, to meet the changing needs of local communities, and communities in different regions of the country.

About

Partnerships allow students to engage in real-world experiences and expand upon coursework by grounding theory with practice. Teachers, teaching artists, arts education leaders, community arts leaders, and students participate in a range of community partnership opportunities that exist in schools, after school programs, museums, community arts centers, community clubs, senior centers, hospitals and social service agencies. Students, faculty, and university initiate these collaborations administrators and community agencies, and embrace the values of imaginative, integrated arts programming wedded to social justice concerns.

Program Vision

"Partnership organizations affirm the central role of imagination, creativity and the arts in culture and society; the power of the arts to enliven and transform education and schools; and collective action through partnerships as the means to place the arts at the center of learning." Arts Education Partnership (AEP)

Lesley University's Partnership Initiatives are aimed at establishing integrated arts partnerships between the university and the larger community, in an effort to promote and sustain systematic change in schools and communities. Through a variety of programming initiatives, Lesley University is committed to increasing the effectiveness of both learning and teaching in community-based cultural arts organizations. Building effective coalitions between teaching and learning communities, Lesley's Partnership Initiatives empower communities, promote new agendas for the arts, support advocacy initiatives, and sustain concepts of cultural democracy.

Teaching Philosophy

Creative Arts and Learning Community Partnerships represent a new program initiative within the division. It is formulated as a dynamic, interdisciplinary program that spans across the division, forming a multi-faceted liaison between classroom-based learning and community-based learning, training and service delivery. The Community Partnership Program is aligned with the division's educational objectives, featuring integrated arts, multiculturalism, critical pedagogy, and social justice programming, and seeks to form partnerships with community-based schools and agencies representing a parallel set of values and program objectives. University administrators, division faculty, students, or external agencies/sites can initiate community partnerships. Programs are situated in schools, after-school programs, museums, community art centers, community clubs, [senior centers, correctional agencies, and hospitals].

Seven Strands

• Reflection
• Assessment
• Critical Studies
• Ways of Knowing
• Connection to Standards
• Multicultural Education
• Integrated Arts