Arts of Citizenship Program Statement

How do the arts, the humanities, and design relate to citizenship?

Our identity as American citizens is shaped in large part by our society’s history, literature, art, community design, and architecture. We practice the "art of citizenship" not only when we vote but also when we create public cultural goods that preserve our past, tell stories of who we are, imagine our future, and provide public space for connecting with each other. The University of Michigan sees community collaboration as a civic responsibility as well as a means to develop new ways to research and teach. In other words, we believe that the work of scholars and artists can do much to enrich civic life in America. We also believe that community projects, created in dialogue with the public, can do much to enrich the university’s educational mission.

What exactly does the program do?

Arts of Citizenship

• forms partnerships in which UM faculty and students work on projects with community organizations such as K-12 schools, museums, libraries, arts institutions, theatre companies, public agencies, and grassroots groups.
• produces cultural products such as history and art exhibits, educational websites, performance pieces, curricula, and park designs.
• develops courses in which students combine learning and research with practical projects that enhance community life.
• provides grant funding to UM faculty and graduate students for innovative teaching, research, and creative projects.
• sponsors lectures and forums featuring distinguished artists and cultural advocates.

What specific community partnerships does Arts of Citizenship have?

Each year we directly sponsor eight to twelve projects, and we award grants for another eight to twelve projects. Our community partners have included Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit, the African American Cultural and Historical Museum of Washtenaw County, Michigan Radio, the City of Ann Arbor, the Ann Arbor District Library, Heritage Battle Creek, Detroit’s Matrix Theatre Company, the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services in Dearborn, and public schools in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and Detroit.

Our projects in the arts, the humanities, and design are wide-ranging:

• Students on Site is our major collaboration with the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti Public Schools. Through field trips, hands-on classroom work, and an online archive, third- and fourth-graders learn to investigate the history of their communities. See the website at www.artsofcitizenship.umich.edu/sos.
• Another K-12 project is Telling It, which features afterschool literacy playshops for homeless children in Washtenaw County. UM students devise multi-arts activities that stimulate writing projects by the children.
• In the Underground Railroad project, Arts of Citizenship has collaborated with the African American Cultural and Historical Museum of Washtenaw County to research nineteenth-century antislavery activism and African American community life in the area. We’ve displayed our youth-oriented historical exhibit, Midnight Journey, to over 20,000 people at schools, libraries, and museums in Michigan and Ontario.
• The Broadway Park Design project (a collaboration with the Ann Arbor Department of Parks and Recreation) proposes designs for public art, public history, and cultural amenities in this historic park on the Huron riverfront. Our website on Broadway Park is at www.artsofcitizenship.umich.edu /broadway.
• Partnering with Detroit’s Mosaic Youth Theatre, Arts of Citizenship teams used oral history and archival research to help create 2001 Hastings Street, a nationally touring musical drama about coming of age in 1940s Detroit. The production and an accompanying exhibit were part of the celebration of the Detroit’s three hundredth anniversary in 2001.
• The Homelands project, with Matrix Theatre of Detroit, produced an original dramatic piece, Homelands, set in the Michigan Central Railroad Depot. The play and its lobby exhibit of historic photos debuted in spring 2002, and UM faculty have produced a multimedia sourcebook as a guide for other groups.
• In partnership with UM’s School of Art and Design, UM students in Arts of Citizenship’s Detroit Connections serve as mentors for afterschool art workshops in Detroit elementary schools. By using art to reinforce math and science concepts, this project aims to improve overall educational outcomes. See www.umich.edu./~janiep for photos of the children.
• Arts of Citizenship has collaborated with Michigan Radio on a series of student-created radio documentaries, including award-winning pieces on the 1967 Detroit riots and on Arab-American youth. The latter has a companion website at www.artsofcitizenship.umich.edu/listen. Plans are underway for additional documentaries on citizenship, youth, and diversity.
• In west Michigan, we’re cosponsoring the Heritage Battle Creek Field School each summer, to train community historians in researching African American local history of the twentieth century with a goal of creating museum exhibits.

How much are UM faculty members involved in Arts of Citizenship?

All Arts of Citizenship projects are led by faculty members, and many faculty members incorporate our public cultural work into courses in Art and Design, History, Communications, the Residential College, and other units. Through a yearly competition, Arts of Citizenship also offers grants to UM faculty members for publicly engaged work. The 41 faculty projects we’ve supported since 1999 have included

• prototype housing designs for Detroit neighborhoods with large tracts of abandoned land.
• a historical mural along Flint’s Riverbank Park, researched and outlined by UM students and painted in by hundreds of community volunteers.
• creative writing workshops in juvenile detention centers.
• a photographic guide to world religions practiced in Detroit.
• a video documentary on women’s health practices in Accra, Ghana.

Are UM students involved in Arts of Citizenship?

Undergraduate and graduate students take part in all our projects. Most participate through innovative courses that give credit for project-based community work. In 2000-2001, for example, more than 100 UM students were involved in Arts of Citizenship projects through eight different courses. Over the past four years, Arts of Citizenship has given grants to fourteen community projects led by graduate students and has funded five graduate-level Civitas Fellowships for summer work on scholarly civic projects.

Does Arts of Citizenship have public events?

Our monthly Second Friday Breakfasts during the academic year bring together faculty, students, staff, and community partners for lively discussions. Arts of Citizenship also sponsors free lectures and forums on the UM campus and at community sites. Visiting speakers have included former poet laureate Robert Hass, filmmaker Ken Burns, architect Daniel Libeskind, and community activist Harry Boyte.

How does Arts of Citizenship judge success in a project?

One measure of each project’s success lies in its products: websites, school curricula, park plans, performances, exhibits. But other important measures of success are how a project builds relationships, leads to educational innovation, and enriches community life. We strive to develop local and regional partnerships that can serve as national models of collaboration between universities and their communities.

Arts of Citizenship has been honored with a number of external awards:

• 2001 Award of Merit in Education, Historical Society of Michigan, for Students on Site
• 2002 Michigan Association of Broadcasters award, for "The Riot Diaries"
• 2003 Michigan Associated Press award, for "Listening to Youth"
• 2004 Great Lakes Community Arts Award, Michigan Association of Community Arts Agencies, for bringing arts and culture into community life
• 2004 Imagining Michigan Award; Michigan Department of History, Arts, and Libraries and Imagining America; for the best university-community collaboration in the state ("Homelands," with Detroit’s Matrix Theatre)

Who funds the Arts of Citizenship Program?

Core funding for Arts of Citizenship comes from the UM Office of the Vice President for Research and from other research and teaching units at UM. The program has also received grants and gifts for specific projects from

• Ford Motor Company
• Community Foundation for Southeastern Michigan
• Michigan Humanities Council
• Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation
• McKinley Foundation of Ann Arbor
• Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation
• Individual donors

Anyone wishing to invest in the Arts of Citizenship Program is encouraged to contact us.