Kate Collins, Ph.D. joined Towson University and became Program Director for the Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Arts Infusion (MAIAI program) in August 2014. Prior to this position, Kate was at Ohio State University completing her doctorate in Arts Administration, Education and Policy. Her action-research dissertation focused on socially engaged arts and cultivating the civic imagination of student and youth artists.
On December 1, my graduate students and I brought our youth partners from the Refugee Youth Project to campus for what turned out to be a pretty amazing day and a wonderful culmination to our second fall residency at Patterson High School in southeast Baltimore for the YAAAS! Project.
A PARTNERSHIP WITH REFUGEE YOUTH
Youth Artists and Allies taking Action in Society (YAAAS!), is an emerging idea investment of BTU—Partnerships at Work for Greater Baltimore and the central focus of a graduate service-learning course offered through Towson University’s M.A. program in Interdisciplinary Arts Infusion (MAIAI), for which I am the director. The seven enrolled graduate students for the course were largely teachers or teaching artists invested in learning how to use collaborative artmaking practices to better support refugee students and English Language Learners. Our 14 youth participants (partners) were Patterson High School students, 16 to 19 years of age. They and their families are refugees from countries such as Syria, Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Uganda.
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