CFA ENGAGING OUR COMMUNITY
SERVICE LEARNING
S ERV I CE LEA R N I N G
ARTsmart ARTsmart is a service-learning program that pairs LMU student mentors with a local public school students who visit LMU for art instruction and to view on-campus art exhibitions several times in each academic year. This program is housed in the LMU Department of Art and Art History, whose students teach visual arts to the students at Westside Global Awareness Magnet, an under-served K-8 school in LAUSD, and from the Hoopa Indian Reservation in Humbolt County, California. The goal of this partnership is to build an appetite within these students for the exploration of materials, concepts, and innovation through artistic expression, and create visual literacy that will serve them throughout their lives.
members of a rapidly changing society. Second, ARTsmart is a leadership-development program for LMU student mentors that incorporates teaching in the arts and community service. With budget cuts affecting Los Angeles Unified School District art programs all over the city, ARTsmart has filled an important educational gap. The exchange with these two schools includes about 50 eighth graders from Hoopa and 50 eighth graders from Westside, who work together in LMU’s Thomas P. Kelly, Jr. Student Art Gallery to create installation art about their shared journey during important life transitions.
The dual mission of ARTsmart is to first provide underserved schoolchildren with an education in the arts that will provide both the instrumental and the intrinsic benefits necessary to become well-rounded, productive
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