Design and Arts Corps
Working together to make the world a better place
Design and Arts Corps collaborates with more than 40 Arizona community partners annually across all programs. In this past year, Design and Arts Corps engaged with more than 6,000 people, building bridges of co-creation with Herberger students, faculty, staff, and the community.
Mission
The Design and Arts Corps partners with communities to place designers, artists, scholars and educators in public life and prepares students to use their creative capacities to advance culture, strengthen democracy and imaginatively address today’s most pressing challenges.
Vision
Communities, designers and artists working together to make the world a better place
Values
- Leverage the creative and scholarly resources of the university to build assets in, with and for communities of location, spirit, experience or tradition.
- Prepare students to engage ethically and thoughtfully in our multiple communities.
- Honor diversity and pluralistic ways of knowing and engaging in the world.
- Practice honesty, transparency and reciprocity in our community partnerships and arts/design actions.
- Use participatory democratic processes to build and participate in public spaces of community and collaboration.
- Support risk-taking, experimentation and the possibility of failure to inspire innovation and engaged learning.
- Evaluate and assess in order to grow stronger.
Understanding Creative Careers
Most people who pursue careers in arts and design will work in a variety of jobs and will contribute creative skills to a wide range of professional fields.
This “Uncle Henry is Wrong” video provides useful statistics that help us to understand some of the context for Design and Arts Corps.
Principles of Design and Arts Corps
We work WITH people not FOR them. We pay attention to DEPTH (both the how and the quality of people’s participation), BREADTH (the number of individuals affected by decisions who participate in decision making processes), and RANGE (the kinds of decisions in which people participate and decide).
Rather than using deficit/needs models, DAC focuses on strengths and leveraging those strengths to build further capacities. We make visible and harvest what up to now has been invisible and treated as though it were scarce.
We take responsibility for one another. DAC projects focus on just and inclusive collaborations that reject racism, inequitable hierarchies, and white supremacy.
DAC features a MULTIDIRECTIONAL flow of knowledge and creative problem-solving. And, we understand ASU as a part of a creative knowledge ecosystem focused on human thriving, not the center.
We blur the distinctions between creative producers and creative
consumers/clients to focus on co-creation. And, our work results in the co-creation of knowledge/actions that measurably contribute/s to positive change.
Join Design and Arts Corps
There are many ways to engage in Design and Arts Corps work. Students, staff, faculty, and community members are invited to collaborate. Here are ways to be involved:
Students:
- Studio Residencies, where graduate and undergraduate students lead multi-year projects alongside long-term community partners.
- Collaborative Course Engagements, where students work with a faculty member to develop and participate in a community-based partnership project inside of a classroom experience..
- Student Initiated Collaborative Projects, where Herberger Institute students receive project funds and mentorship to support established community-engaged projects.
- Undergraduate Student Fellows Program, where students design engagements within the Herberger Institute community that support the wellbeing of their peers.
- Certificate in Community Engaged Practices (undergraduate and graduate), consisting of online and in person hybrid self-paced learning modules. This certificate is for degree and non-degree seeking students, growing capacities and experience working in a community partnership setting.
Faculty and Staff:
- Collaborative Course Engagements, where faculty are supported with project funding and mutual mentorship to develop and lead community-based art partnership projects through their Herberger Institute classes.
Community Partners
- Featured Community Partnerships: We build reciprocal, community-centered partnerships that connect community priorities with the creative, educational, and institutional resources of the Herberger Institute. Together, we develop projects that respond to community-identified goals while creating meaningful learning opportunities for our students.
- Become a Community Partner: We welcome organizations, groups, and individuals interested in exploring a potential collaboration with Design and Arts Corps. Whether you have a specific project in mind or would simply like to learn more about working together, we invite you to reach out and start a conversation.
Theory of Change
Most design and arts move from process to product in a linear way.
The Design and Arts Corps wraps process and product into a continuous cycle while adding participatory publics. Community engages in each part of the creative cycle and together we collectively leverage design and/or the arts to build value in specific ways.
This is a model for how the Design and Arts Corps as a whole invests in building a better world from the individual to the policy levels.
Through public participation, Design and Arts Corps facilitates results at 5 levels:
Beauty
Pleasurable environments and experiences.
Creative capacities
Building skills in collective imagination.
Joy
Experiences of happiness and delight.
Targeted capabilities
Project/partnership specific growth and goals.
Cultural vitality
Diverse arts and cultural experiences are deep parts of everyday life.
Diverse and inclusive community leadership
Honoring and supporting skills in community leadership particularly for historically marginalized peoples.
Full spectrum participation
All people are able to have enjoyable and relevant cultural experiences.
Reflective and relevant institutions
Investing and supporting organizations that represent their diverse communities.
Social cohesion
A community that works towards the wellbeing of all of its members, reflecting shared responsibility and promoting trust and belonging.
Collective efficiency
The ability to work together to get things done.
Equity
Fair distribution of power and resources.
Justice
Fair and equitable society, laws and policies.
Participatory democracy
Deep, engaged and sustained participation in the democratic process well beyond voting.
Aspirations
Dreams for the present and future.
Attitudes
Approach or outlook.
Beliefs
Viewpoints.
Creativity
Imagination.
Feelings of belonging
Emotional connections to people and places.
Flexibility
The ability to adapt.
Hope
Optimism for the future.
Knowledge
Information.
Problem solving
Identifying solutions for desired outcomes.
Skills
Abilities.
Deep collaboration
Respectful and mutually beneficial partnerships that expand possibilities.
Equitable communication
Every voice is heard and valued.
Reciprocity
Mutually beneficial relationships.
Strong formal and informal networks
Building both interpersonal and organizational connections.
Media
View the recent stories, blogs or buzz about the Design and Arts Corps.
ASU News
Buzz about Design and Arts Corps