After School Arts Program

What is the After School Arts Program (ASAP)?

ASAP is a unique partnership between the University of Illinois and local public middle schools. Conceived by the Chancellor Richard Herman, in collaboration with the College of Education, the Center for Education in Small Urban Communities, the College of Fine and Applied Arts, and the Champaign and Urbana School Districts, ASAP will provide high quality visual and performing arts instruction at no cost to public middle school students in our community. ASAP will utilize faculty and students from the College of Fine and Applied Arts and thereby create rich teaching and learning experiences for both students and instructors.

How will ASAP be different from traditional arts education?

ASAP will be uniquely interdisciplinary in its approach to the arts. ASAP will provide the opportunity for improved student learning and engagement by including a myriad of performing and visual arts educational experiences as well as promoting a strong linkage between the arts and more traditional academic areas. This synthesis both within the arts curriculum and across the arts, sciences and humanities areas will help define and structure the ASAP’s distinctive, high quality programs.

ASAP will also provide linkages to rich cultural opportunities within the campus and community. Students’ horizons and understandings of the world will be expanded via their access to the Colleges of Fine and Applied Arts, Education, Engineering, and Liberal Arts and Sciences, as well as to campus-based resources such as the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, Krannert Art Museum, Center for World Music, National Center for Super-Computing Applications, etc. ASAP will also reach out to community-based art initiatives, and encourage trips to theaters, exhibits and events outside the students’ immediate neighborhood.

When and where will ASAP begin?

The pilot program will begin in Franklin Middle School with two separate nine week units, or strands; Visual Art and World Music, each serving twelve eighth grade students. We intend to expand the program to serve Urbana Middle School in the Spring of 2009 with the addition of Contemporary Dance and Balinese Gamelan.

Students in the initial visual arts strand will study with Ms. Elise Putnam, a graduate student in Art Education here at the University of Illinois. Her class entitled, Art In your Eyes: Investigate what art means to you, will actively challenge her students’ notions of art and art-making while encouraging them to think critically and express themselves both verbally and creatively. Each student will explore the art-making practice of his or her choice through individual projects.

Students in the World Music strand will study West African Drumming. Moussa Bolokada Conde, a guest instructor in the Center for World Music, will teach the traditional drum music of the Mande people of Guinea, West Africa.

Who will the students be and how will they be selected?

Students will be selected for these classes according to the following criteria:

After an initial assembly introducing the program, students will have the opportunity to submit applications (please review attached). In it, interested students will write a brief statement describing what arts activities interest them and why. In this way, we hope to identify those students who have a sincere interest in and curiosity about the arts who can commit to this rigorous program. The ASAP team, in collaboration with Franklin Middle School staff, will endeavor to admit students that represent the inherent diversity of the student body with consideration made to each student’s race, gender, physical ability, socioeconomic status, and language.

For additional information regarding ASAP, please contact Sonia Warfel, Program Coordinator at 217-333-4687 or swarfel2@illinois.edu

 

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