Our Programs
Community Murals, Arts and Culture
The Mural Project
The Engaged University collaborated with a number of local artists (Jorge Somarriba, Curtis Cunningham, Margo Humphrey and Cory Stowers) and middle school students to create murals at local public schools.
We then received a Maryland State Arts Council’s ArtVantage program grant to link University students to these efforts.
In spring 2007, the Engaged University brought together five University of Maryland students, a DC-based artist/educator (Joyce Wellman), a Middle School art teacher (Curtis Cunningham), and an afterschool art club at William Wirt Middle School to produce an exciting mural that was unveiled on July 24, 2007 at a ceremony in the lobby of the school.
In the summer of 2007, a second mural to be hung at William Wirt was produced by middle school students and teacher Curtis Cunningham with highschool and university student assistants.
The Engaged University hopes to collaborate with others to form a Community Arts Mural Collaboratory at the University of Maryland’s Center for Educational Partnership. The Collaboratory will engage a number of experienced university and community youth artists who can be commissioned to design and paint community murals, conduct community art workshops, and provide training and technical assistance for groups of all kinds interested in community art projects.
Our Mural Project fits under our Community Arts and Culture initiative as well as under our University-Assisted Community Schools program area.
Drumming/ Breakdancing/ Spoken Word Performance Art/ Photography
In the past few years, The Engaged University's collaborative summer enrichment camp and afterschool programs have featured drumming and turntabling, breakdancing, spoken word performance poetry and photography. We expect to continue to work with partners like Words, Beats and Life, TerPoets, Sol & Soul, and the Maryland Multicultural Youth Centers to provide some of these offerings during the 2007 school year as afterschool and weekend programs by engaging university student teachers and community artists.