Arts and Entertainment

Center for the Performing Arts seeks course proposals

Mellon Foundation grant-funded courses will further identity who ‘We Are’

UNIVERSITY PARK — The Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State announces a call for proposals to create a general education interdomain course, which centers the performing arts at its core, for faculty at University Park. All proposed courses will include robust and significant engagement with Center for the Performing Arts artists and performances.

“The Reflection Project: Looking at Who WE ARE” is a program funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and developed with a goal of creating sustainable interdomain courses with the performing arts at their core. The impact will be to elevate “We Are” from a one-dimensional declaration of Penn State identity to a critical examination of who we are and how we fit into both the University culture and the world at large.

Through purposeful and meaningful engagement with the performing arts, the courses developed will aim to create a sense of belonging and inclusion for students by exploring themes such as:

• personal and communal identity;

• how to build and immerse one’s self in a community;

• creating and receiving empathy;

• recognizing the importance of telling one’s story and the story of others;

• preparing for global citizenship.

“Performing artists are uniquely positioned to illuminate issues of community, understanding that all social activity happens in spaces with individuals interacting with each other,” said George Trudeau, Center for the Performing Arts director. “By framing experiences that ask participants to examine who they are — both as Penn Staters and as people — the center hopes to uncover multiple ways of belonging as part of this distinctive community.”

The proposed course must combine the arts with one of the other knowledge domains: arts and humanities; health and wellness; natural sciences; and social and behavioral sciences.

The portal to create and submit an application, https://cpa.psu.edu/proposal, will be open through Saturday, Feb. 22. Prior to submitting a full application, submission and approval of a 250-word course summary is required. The summary is due by Wednesday, Jan. 29, with invitations to submit a full application forthcoming within three business days. Courses should launch in Fall 2020, Spring 2021 or Fall 2021.

An information meeting and question-and-answer session will take place at 11 a.m. Friday, Jan. 24, in the Eisenhower Auditorium Conference Room.

For more information, contact Cheri Jehu at clj5350@psu.edu or at 814-865-2109.

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Last Updated January 13, 2020

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