Intersections of Community Arts and Activism with a Liberal Arts Education

On one side of the divide are art, creativity and aesthetics; on the other are social change, activism and public service. Those in the field of community arts and artist/activists know that this divide is an artifice, yet for many students considering a major or a profession, it is real, as the choices they make are uninformed by the dynamic options of the field. Thirty-five years ago, I made “the choice” when I struggled between accepting a full scholarship to an art school to “become an artist” or attending a liberal arts college to prepare me for a yet unknown profession that would enable me to “make a difference in the world.” I chose the latter. It was not until much later in life that I realized that the two were not mutually exclusive and, although things have changed, educating students about the intersection of art, activism and community still has room for growth.

For over ten years, I worked at Massachusetts of Art, where I founded and directed the Office of Community Service Learning. Four years ago, I left MassArt to take a position with the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University. The struggle I went through to make this decision brought me back to that earlier choice. For the first time in my career in higher education, my work at MassArt had allowed me to build a bridge that connected the two shores on either side of what I now know was an imagined divide. For many reasons, I chose to leave MassArt and transitioned to Tufts, where I work with liberal-arts students majoring in every discipline (along with a minority of art students). This paper will explore my work at Tufts and reflect on my experiences at MassArt, focusing on both the challenges and successes. How can collaboration between liberal arts and visual arts increase learning outcomes for students and benefits to communities?

Service Learning and Community-Based Art in an Art School Context

My work at MassArt from 1996 to 2003 had a dual focus. I worked with faculty across the visual-art disciplines to integrate community-based work and civic engagement into the curriculum. I also developed campus/community collaborative co-curricular programs. The great majority of these programs and courses were successful by most measures of assessment. Yet a nagging question persisted: Were our students given a strong enough foundation in the issues of social change to have the maximum efficacy possible? The skills, knowledge and values being built were strong within the framework of art, even of community art, but in retrospect I realize that there were times that students could have benefited from a stronger academic foundation in social justice, public policy and civic education even though there was incorporation of reflection and basic exposure to the issues being addressed. Each service-learning course and co-curricular program had a different degree of civic preparation dealing with the underlying social issue being addressed; some were at a higher level than others. The contributing factors for this varied, but the most common was the perceived lack of time in a 13-week syllabus. If the primary outcome is increasing students’ studio-based skills, how much time can be taken from actual artmaking for this type of preparation? Additionally, the number of critical studies or academic courses offered are often limited in art schools.

Efforts made by many faculty members at MassArt were exemplary within this context. One model was a print-production course taught by Associate Professor of Graphic Design Lisa Rosowsky. Lisa, staff from the Boston Public Schools, the Millennium Family Shelter and I collaborated to plan for the class to produce a primer on homelessness for high-school students. I wrote much of the text over the summer, which was then reviewed by the rest of the team. When the semester began, students in Lisa’s class were given the completed text to design and bring to production. The time required for work in this course could not allow any supporting experiences around the issue of homelessness other than my orientation given at the first class, yet the students became far more engaged in the project than we could have predicted. They requested visiting the shelter outside of class time, and wanted to talk to residents about their experiences. They asked for permission to photograph rooms in the shelter to show real images of the inside of a family shelter. They even became engaged in the text, making changes and additions to make it more “youth-friendly.” The resulting product, a 44-page color book, contained profiles and interviews; sections on the history and root causes of homelessness, life in a shelter and ways to take action or volunteer; and a teachers’ section with class activities. The format and design were vibrant and clearly focused on the target audience of urban high-school students. Two thousand copies were produced and distributed; the only problem was that we could have used ten times that number to fulfill the requests.

Massachusetts College of Art student Vanessa St. Laurent shares a sketch she did of William George with him and his daughter, Lavona George (holding her father's Congressional Medal), at the Shiprock Boys and Girls Club on the Navajo reservation in New Mexico. In the background is a mural in process created by Lavona, MassArt students, and children at the club. click here to enlarge

This course was successful, yet in an ideal world, wouldn’t the civic knowledge of the MassArt students increase if their understanding of homelessness were deepened? Because students were designing the book, they needed to read the text, which offered them a wide range of information on homelessness (though at a high-school level). Yet academic courses such as the Tufts course “Homelessness in America,” if taken currently with this design course, would potentially scaffold upon the learning outcomes for each. This could have led to the students themselves researching and writing the original text, rather than myself. The argument could be made that these students were studying graphic design, not homelessness. Yet if liberal-arts courses focusing on social issues were a part of these students’ education, and these courses were clearly corresponding to their studio work, I believe that not only would their civic knowledge increase but also their understanding of themselves as artists and their role in society. I would also foresee an increased efficacy of work in the public and community-based realm by the artists.

A co-curricular example is an arts-and-literacy program I began in 1997 called “Sharing Our Stories.” There had been a national call to colleges and universities in 1996 to participate in “America Reads,” asking students to volunteer to tutor early elementary-school children to increase literacy rates. MassArt was asked to participate in the local “Read Boston” program of America Reads and I recruited a small group of students who would be trained with hundreds of other students from colleges across the Boston area and then placed in Boston Public School classrooms. Recruiting for this program was not easy, even given the fact that students could be paid through work-study funding. A majority of visual-art students were not interested in using their rare time available outside the studio to tutor reading, nor did they feel capable. The small group that began dwindled to one student, with the drop-off beginning in the training session, which turned off the art students and was perceived to be “irrelevant” or “over my head.” I began to think of ways that we could still meet the America Reads challenge but through utilizing the talents of art students. This led me to discuss the issues with the one student remaining, Rebecca Reetz, and together we developed the afterschool program “Sharing Our Stories.” This program inspired second and third graders to write and read through pairing them with MassArt mentors. Children wrote autobiographical stories in their classroom and would read their writings each week to their mentors, who would then work with them to illustrate their stories. These stories and illustrations were then made into books. The program concluded each year with an event for participants and their friends and families. Children came up on stage at MasArt’s large auditorium and read from their books with their illustration projected behind them, followed by an opening reception for an exhibition of the books in the MassArt gallery.

Each year, two mentors were selected to coordinate the program the following year. Mentor training included skill-based sessions from faculty members on illustration techniques and book making. A faculty member from the Art Education department led a workshop that included cultural and diversity issues and provided the students with readings for follow-up. Each week, the mentors met as a group prior to the program, where they reviewed plans and discussed issues. Afterwards, they regrouped and reflected on the session. Additionally, periodic in-service training sessions were held throughout the year. This model was sustained over the time I was at MassArt and many students stayed with the program throughout their time at the college. Sharing Our Stories drew art-education majors as well as students from every other art discipline. There are many examples of students who, as a result of the program, shifted their intended directions and went to graduate school for art education or entered the field of community art. One MassArt 2003 alumnus who participated in Sharing Our Stories for three years, artist/educator Rosemary Taylor, recently wrote to me. She was a painting major, and then received her MFA in painting from Brooklyn College. She is now a teaching artist at the Arts & Literacy Program at PS 377 in Brooklyn, NY. She wrote:

Sharing our Stories relates to everything I have done since MassArt. I am currently working with school age children in an Arts & Literacy after school program. I am the visual arts instructor, but literacy is a component in all aspects of my lesson plans. I learned the importance of literacy inclusion during my time with Sharing Our Stories, giving me the foundation I needed to begin my work as a teaching artist. I often revisit the lessons and materials that I used with Sharing Our Stories, with my current students. Creating visual documents based student’s lives and experiences is a consistent element of the work I do with youth. Sharing Our Stories proved to me that it is through children’s personal stories that we learn the truth about the world we all live in.

I was thinking about the issues I raise in this paper, and wrote back to Rosemary asking if she thought courses such as “Race in America,” “Active Citizenship in an Urban Community,” “Childhood Across Cultures,” “Promoting Positive Youth Development,” “Class, Race and Gender in the History of U.S. Education” or “Sociology of the School” (all courses offered at Tufts) would have been considered by her relevant or beneficial, understanding this is from a retrospective perspective. She wrote back:

Absolutely! I feel all artists and art students would benefit from such courses. I fortunately sought out courses of diverse subject and discipline, but I would have greatly appreciated and benefited from courses much more closely related to the work I was interested in doing. I feel the more an artist has a context in which to work from, the more successful the work will be. This is especially true when the work is associated with arts education, social justice, and other realms of social service through creative outlets. The understanding of a historical framework both political and social allows the artist’s work to be more effective and clearly communicated.

I do not mean to infer that MassArt and other art schools do not offer any courses such as these, and Rosemary herself states that she took a diversity of courses. However, the depth and range of civic learning that a liberal-arts institution is able to offer could not be available at most art schools. Additionally, the connections between students’ studio work, options for community-based art, political or activist art, and such liberal-arts academic courses are not often made clear to students.

A Curriculum-based Alternative Break

Working with MassArt colleague Peg Turner, professor of critical studies, we developed a model that tried to address the issues of connections between academic and community-based work. It began with the idea of developing an “alternative spring break,” emerging as common practice in universities at that time in the mid-’90s. I explored the potential of planning one for MassArt students in the Southwest, and came upon a contact for the Boys and Girls Club in Shiprock, New Mexico, on the Navajo reservation. In July of 1997, I was able to meet with Lavona George, a Navajo artist teaching at an afterschool program at the club. In the two days I spent with Lavona to discuss working together, I realized that the idea of a weeklong alternative break was unsound and even potentially harmful to both the students and the community of Shiprock. Lavona opened herself to me, a stranger and outsider, bringing me to the sacred land of Shiprock, talking about cultural traditions and history, telling me about the issues faced by her family and others on the reservation. I had never before been to the Southwest; I had little prior knowledge of the Navajo art or culture, yet somehow I had thought that I could lead a group of students in a collaborative project in this community. My time with Lavona led me back to MassArt determined to return to Shiprock but not in the way I had preconceived. I discovered that MassArt professor Peg Turner was an art historian and anthropologist whose work focused on Native American history and culture. Instead of a co-curricular alternative break, Peg, Lavona, the Shiprock Boys and Girls Club and I began a collaboration that lasted the five years until I left MassArt. Each year, a spring semester academic course, co-taught by Peg and I, incorporated into the curriculum not only the above elements, but also issues of class, race and privilege, the objectification of Native Americans in the world of cultural institutions, and relevant social and public policy issues. Skill-based curriculum preparing students for a collaborative project was also woven into the syllabus prior to a two-week trip to Shiprock. Upon return from New Mexico, students continued learning about the issues while working in the studio creating art based on their experiences. They also maintained contact with Lavona and others they had worked with in Shiprock, and had a final group exhibition in a student gallery.

The format of this course proved successful in a number of ways for both students and community members, and numerous outcomes occurred. Students mobilized to participate in a campaign to belatedly award the Navajo Code Talkers of World War II the Congressional Medal of Honor, after meeting with William George, Lavona’s father, medicine man and Code Talker. Visiting Lavona’s former family home, now abandoned due to the use of stones from uranium mines in the structure, students returned to campus invested in learning more about the issue and became involved in another advocacy campaign, asking Congress for greater funding for the healthcare costs of former Navajo miners and their families. Over the years, three students went on to work with AmeriCorps VISTA on Native American reservations after graduating from MassArt. Literally every student participant over the five years we offered this class wrote in their journals about the transformational aspects of the course and the trip. An alumnus recently wrote:

[This course] was undoubtedly the highlight of my college years. I had been previously involved in community art education programs throughout my educational career, but the Navajo of the Southwest program added a broader dimension to my understanding and thinking of art as a vehicle for social/community change. It opened my eyes to the need of cross-cultural exchange through the arts, and the powerful role artists can play in facilitating that exchange. In the time since my participation in the program, I have become increasingly involved with community arts organizations. I have worked as a teaching artist both in and out of public school systems. I feel that my experience in New Mexico served as a catalyst in my continuing work as a teaching artist, particularly with student populations in culturally rich and diverse communities. …I would not have had a rewarding experience if I had not known and understood the specific issues related to the art, social, cultural, or political history of the Navajo people. The academic coursework was imperative to work we did with the students at the Shiprock Boys and Girls Club. The course work gave me a better understanding of the academic and social setting in which many of the children were learning and living... . My commitment to community art programming was solidified as a result of my time in New Mexico. It has also been because of this program that I am interested in returning to the Southwest, to create paintings. My time in the Southwest convinced me of the need to create work in a culturally and historically rich landscape.

Transitioning to Liberal Arts

My current work at Tisch College, though mainly focused on undergraduate liberal-arts students and graduate students, has also included work with the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA): Students seeking a BFA take all nonstudio classes at Tufts. In collaboration, we founded the Institute for Art and Civic Engagement, housed at the SMFA, which continues each year to engage greater numbers of students and faculty. I teach a course open to all students through the Tufts Experimental College called “Art, Activism, and Community: Visual Art for Social Change.” The ratio of liberal-arts students to SMFA students enrolled is approximately three to one. I’ve structured this course to examine the ways in which contemporary visual artists have addressed social issues, exploring art that facilitates positive change, creates public dialogues and strengthens communities. Guest artists, slides, readings, films and visits to community arts organizations expose students to a wide range of approaches. We debate the aesthetics, impacts, strengths and challenges of the works, issue by issue. For each issue — immigration, race, healthcare, education, human rights, social justice, the environment — students are introduced to the critical problem solving, creative thinking and visionary solutions of artists. The SMFA students consistently question why the ground covered in this course is not a basic part of art students’ curriculum. Most were previously unfamiliar with much of the work covered in the course, and had struggled with how they could combine their art and passion for social change. Nora Chovanec, a junior at the SMFA, writes:

I took the course on Art and Social Change and I have to say that it was probably the single most important and life changing class I have taken to date. …As I began creating work, I realized that for my own art to really mean something, I needed to find a way to make work that could impact positive change. But I was still rather unsure of the best way to do that. Through the class I not only learned about the amazing civically engaged work that other artists were doing, but I also learned tools to apply to my own work. Through the class I came to the realization that community-based artwork is a very viable option for artists to reach out to the area in which they reside and allows them to become an active member of their community. The class helped to open my eyes to the fact that it is crucial for our upcoming generation of artists to make their art more accessible to the general public, to have a positive impact on their surrounding communities, and to help others tap into their own creativity, no matter their age or experience level.

In a course evaluation, another SMFA student wrote:

I am now aware of how art can have a concrete effect on people. This class has changed the way I think about my own art: I now realize that I can use my voice to convey a message through my art; that my social activism and my art do not have to be two separate things, and that the public can be a part of it.

For the liberal-arts students enrolled in the course, most had not been aware of the fact that there were artist/activists and community-based artists impacting social issues. They had selected the course because they themselves were civically engaged students and were curious or seeking new ideas. As this student states in a course evaluation:

This class broadened my definition of art, and made me aware that there are ways I never thought about that facilitate social change. The idea of art as a tool for creating change is so different from more traditional methods, but I thought that in each artist we studied, it was equally effective.

Tufts senior Nikki Bruce, currently enrolled in the course, writes:

I think this is a bridge that many liberal arts students, myself included, tend to overlook or pass up as a less effective way of achieving social change. What I'm seeing in the class is that it is effective to elicit social change with visual art. From our reactions in class alone you can tell that we're thinking about these issues in a different way because we are literally seeing them visually represented in a way that makes us admire the piece as art as well as the fact that the artist is a change agent.

Inevitably, a powerful outcome is the ways in which groups of students learn from each other. SMFA students bring strong aesthetic knowledge and push the boundaries; liberal-arts students often bring prior experience working in community settings or having taken foundational courses in civic engagement. Class discussions are usually rich and spirited. Both SMFA students and liberal-arts students each year consistently state in evaluations that this class provides a rare opportunity for them to collaborate, one of the highlights of the course.

According to Mat Schwarzman,

Both [artists and political activists] have a lot to learn from the others’ experiences and discourses. It is, in the end, the very notion of social change that requires our mutual attention and interrogation. We need to integrate materialist analyses of structures of power and oppression with intuitive analyses of the human spirit. In my mind’s eye, I imagine a time when artists will be recognized as leaders and equal partners in social change movements in this country, and all activists will imagine themselves one part organizer, one part artist (3).”

Civic Learning Outcome

When I began at Tufts, my colleagues and I created a framework of student civic-learning outcomes, outlining the skills, knowledge and values “individuals need to be effective active citizens” (Nierenberg, et al. 1). Through intentionally creating a rubric of a uniform set of outcomes, we developed a platform from which to build effective civic engagement regardless of the discipline. This philosophical platform clearly applies to the arguments I have made to increase the level of civic education for art students engaged in the community or addressing social issues.

In 1995, Carol Becker, then dean and vice president for academic affairs of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, was interviewed by Suzi Gablik for the book “Conversations Before the End of Time.” She stated,

What [art] students need, fundamentally, is a very good education, because one of things artists aren’t given-and it disempowers them terribly in the world- is good reading and writing skills…and they’re told not to worry about it because they’re artists…But there’s been this idea that if you verbalize, or intellectualize, it’ll destroy the spontaneous, intuitive qualities of artmaking. I think that’s crazy- it’s developing only half a person. I want our students to have a good, solid, historical education, so that they know the culture they’re living in and are curious about the rest of the world (371).

Upon examining our Student Civic Learning Outcomes, one can see that the arts have also been considered as important to liberal arts students. The relevant outcome reads:

“Recognizes the value of the arts as a means of facilitating civic dialogue and engaging diverse constituencies” (1). I believe it is noteworthy that this is included within a liberal-arts institution’s framework of the skills, knowledge and values needed to be an effective active citizen, defined as “a person who understands the obligation and undertakes the responsibility to improve community conditions, build healthier communities and address social problems” (2).

For too long, the arts, often seen as skill-based, have been separate from the more “intellectual” disciplines of the liberal arts. Even more distressing is that the issue that discouraged me from going to art school over 30 years ago still exists. “You’re too smart to be an artist” was oft repeated to me as I pondered my future. I am surprised to hear from students decades later that this is something they, too, were told. Students I have taught or worked with at MassArt that transferred from Harvard and other “elite” institutions have confided this to me, as have students who made the choice to forgo art and major in other fields at Tufts. I believe that if there were more intentional connections made between the arts, community and “education for active citizenship,” a much greater range of options would be open to a greater spectrum of students. Carol Becker states,

I have no one image of what art should be. I just know that everything in society exists within a society. I want our students to think about where they are in relation to the society. …I think it would be a tremendous mistake if everyone now felt that the only art that mattered is art that is out there in a very socially conscious way. Because we all know that we’ve gotten great joy and pleasure from things that were made from a very personal vision of the world. …I want to see it all exist, and what I would really like for our [art] students is for them to know the whole range of possibilities — and within that, to chose who they are going to be. And to know that this definition of themselves can evolve and change, and that they can start in one place and end up in another (365).

Teaching art for social change successfully requires a very complex pedagogy. It is necessary to further students’ artmaking skills as well as the skills and knowledge needed to educate them to be successful activists and changemakers. Discovering where they lie on a spectrum in each of these arenas is the initial stage of my teaching in order to determine if I’m laying a foundation or building upon it. As students progress in each and create the intersection, their work builds in power and efficacy. Intrinsic to artmaking as process is the formation of creative thoughts, layering one on top of another. Inspiration during this process, and/or as a result of this process, can be put toward healing and change, whether interpersonal, intrapersonal or societal in nature. In fact, Mat Schwarzman’s concept of “integrat[ing] materialist analyses of structures of power and oppression with intuitive analyses of the human spirit” pertains not just to the education of artists, but to education across the disciplines.

Educating for Active Citizenship

John Saltmarsh, director of the New England Resource Center for Higher Education, writes,

Many campuses across the country intentionally create opportunities for students to actively participate in the processes of democracy: community-based learning, service learning, action research, public and community service, deliberative dialogues, community building, and public deliberation, among others. There has been less attention, however, to heeding John Dewey's admonition that democracy is a learned activity. To engage effectively in the processes of democracy, both during and after their college years, students will need to acquire, as part of their education, the knowledge, skills, and values necessary to participate as engaged, democratic citizens (1).

Tisch College, “a national leader in preparing students to become engaged public citizens and community leaders who will help build a more equitable world” created the rubric of Student Civic Learning Outcomes to serve this purpose. Students are able to utilize it to map their progress and select goals to work toward. It also provides faculty with a common ground for the defining “active citizenship,” a hallmark of a Tufts education. More recently, we are working toward the development of a comprehensive list of courses in each and every discipline at Tufts related to this preparation. The list will be utilized by both faculty advisors and individual students seeking to acquire an education that will provide them with “the knowledge, skills, and values necessary to participate as engaged, democratic citizens” (1). My hope is that the list will be well utilized not only by the liberal arts, but also by SMFA students and the faculty who serve as their advisors.

Carol Becker talks about the fact that most art schools are structured for students to create art, culminating in a final body of work for graduation. In her words:

That means that they spend those crucial years putting out rather than taking in. Many of them take hardly any art history or contemporary issues courses. …Often students complain that they have to do all these other courses in humanities and art history, but what they don’t realize is that they’re really developing themselves, and that without that, there’s little to make art about (373).

Conclusions

The strategies and resources available to SMFA students through Tisch College are being increasingly utilized. The growth of interest from students and faculty has been exciting, and as an artist and art educator, I have appreciated the opportunity to create a bridge between the two. My experience at both MassArt and Tufts has led me to believe that the field of community arts and the role of artist as changemaker is currently at a moment in history ready to phenomenally expand and has the power to transform our society. In 2005, Colby, et al., in “Educating Citizens: Preparing America’s Undergraduates for Lives of Moral and Civic Responsibility,” wrote:

Recent events are also a reminder that students, like all other individuals, are developing in a particular historical context and that historical events can affect their moral and civic development…When historical events dramatically affect the lives of a generation of young people…they can create a generational identity that becomes key to the way members of that generation understand themselves and their stance towards the world, as well as toward their country and its government (265).

The students in our colleges and universities were children in their formative years during 9/11. Writing in the Boston Globe, Robert Putnam, author of the seminal book “Bowling Alone” states:

The attacks on their civic conscious were enduring. The annual UCLA chart of interest in politics jumped upward in 2001 for the first time in decades and has kept rising every year since. Last month, the UCLA researchers reported that “For today’s freshmen, discussing politics is more prevalent now than at any point in the past 41 years.” This and other evidence led us and other observers to speak hopefully of a 9/11 generation, perhaps even a new “Greatest Generation” (D9)

The historic potential of a woman or African-American President of the United States for the first time in our history is galvanizing students and engaging them in the very fiber of the civic lives of the country. Perhaps in part as a reaction to 9/11, young people are also valuing community and the building of connections across divides on local levels. These are positive indicators for a surge of interest in community art and activism, as is the recognition of art and design as universal language and tool for bridging differences. This is exciting for the field, but in the midst of this increasing rate of growth it is imperative to re-examine the infrastructures we have created and either build upon them or look to new models. Could community-based art courses be intentionally linked to critical studies or academic courses on relevant issues? Should there be prerequisites for participation in community-based art, for curricular and co-curricular work? Could cross-registration and relationships between art schools and liberal-arts colleges and universities be developed and/or strengthened? Should critical studies and/or foundation departments in art schools be redefined? Are there courses offered in art schools and departments of art history or social sciences in liberal arts schools that include artist/activists and community-based artists and organizations? Is there an institutionalized role for members of the community to serve as advisors, mentors, supervisors and/or educators? Are there plentiful opportunities for art students and students in other disciplines to collaborate and work together for positive social change?

The connections among the multitude of issues that need to be addressed in our society and the human being’s limitless capacity for imagination highlights the need and the central opening that exists for artists, the epitome of the creative thinkers. The divide between art and activism may be getting narrower, even nonexistent, but the bridge that the field of community arts has created needs to be institutionalized at both arts and liberal-arts institutions.

This essay is part of the Community Arts Convening & Research Project, 2008, funded by a Nathan Cummings Foundation grant to the Maryland Institute College of Art. The essay was reviewed and selected by the project's Editorial Board: Ron Bechet, Xavier University of Louisiana; Lori Hager, University of Oregon; Marina Gutierrez, Cooper Union; Ken Krafchek, Maryland Institute College of Art; Sonia Mañjon, California College of the Arts; Amalia Mesa-Bains, California State University Monterey Bay; Paul Teruel, Columbia College Chicago; and Stephanie Woodson, Arizona State University.

Mindy Nierenberg is the senior program manager of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, a lecturer at the Experimental College of Tufts University, and part-time Visiting Faculty at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. She has presented workshops internationally on art for social change and served as a consultant for numerous art schools and departments of visual art in the fields of service learning and community art. A mixed-media artist and printmaker, she has exhibited her work in galleries across the U.S.

Works Cited

Bacon, B. Schaffer, C. Yuen and P. Korza. Animating Democracy: The Artistic Imagination as a Force in Civic Dialogue Washington, D.C.: Americans for the Arts, 1998.

Cohen-Cruz, J., “An Introduction to Community Art and Activism.” 2002. Community Arts Network Art in the Public Interest. 15 Feb. 2008 http://www.communityarts.net/readingroom/archivefiles/ 2002/02/an_introduction.php.

Colby, A., et al. Educating Citizens: Preparing America’s Undergraduates for Lives of Moral and Civic Responsibility. San Francisco, Jossey Bass, 2003 .

Felshin, N. But Is It Art? The Spirit of Art as Activism. Seattle, Wash.: Bay Press, 1995.

Gablik, S. Conversations Before the End of Time. London: Thames & Hudson, 1997.

Nierenberg, M., N. Wilson and M. Mead. “Student Civic Learning Outcomes” Association of American Colleges & Universities conference. San Francisco, Calif. 26 Jan. 2005.

Putnam, R. “The Rebirth of American Civic Life.” Boston Globe 2 March 2008.

Saltmarsh, J. “The Civic Promise of Service Learning.” Liberal Education. 91 (2): 50-55.

Schwarzman, M. “It’s About Transformation: Thoughts on Arts as Social Action.” High Performance 64 Winter 1993.

Original CAN/API publication: July 2008