Arts and Creativity (Intellectual Inquiry)

Course Template

Creativity is pertinent to all disciplines. In general education, a focus on creativity adds to the vitality and relevance of learning and will translate into graduates who are better prepared to face the challenges of a dynamic society. Arts and Creativity courses under this rubric will explore the human need to experience, comprehend, and utilize processes that transcend the conventions of utility, whether that involves the mastery of rules or the decision to break them, the desire to identify and refine the expressible or to recognize and prize the ineffable. The creative process and its products and results are the focus on this course; while they may be taught from the traditional fine arts perspectives, it is expected that courses will also be based on an exploration of the creative and aesthetic aspects of “rational”, “scientific” or quantitative disciplines, e.g., the “elegance” of certain scientific/mathematical proofs or the beauty inherent in a well-articulated design.

Learning Outcomes

Students will personally perform, produce, fabricate or generate an artifact or artifacts that demonstrates their engagement with the creative process (e.g. an object, product, installation, presentation, record of a performance etc.) either as an individual or as part of a collaborative. As part of this process students will:

• Define and distinguish different approaches (historical, theoretical, and methodological issues) to “creativity” as appropriate to the disciplinary practices specific to the subject, medium, or approach that informs a particular course.
  
   
• Apply the logic, laws, or constraints of the area of study, (e.g, “out of the box” thinking, or the masterful, elegant treatment of given rules or forms).
  
   
• Demonstrate the ability to critically analyze work produced by other students in this course and in co-curricular events using appropriate tools. These analyses should utilize relevant information resources to incorporate historical, theoretical, and or cultural factors.
  
   
• Evaluate results of their own creative endeavors and, using that evaluation, reassess and refine their work.

Guidelines for Course Designers

The primary emphasis of courses in Arts and Creativity must be on active learning through student performance, expression, and/or production (what is known as “process- focused” creativity). This emphasis should be documented through the number of assignments or class meetings devoted to this work (expressed as a percentage) or through the grading mechanism for the final grade for the course.

Though “process-focused,” the course may highlight other approaches to creativity. Students may be expected to explore forms of creativity that are constraint-focused (mastering or overcoming established “laws” or “systems”), product-focused (emphasis on the originality, utility or value of the thing produced), transformation-focused (risk- taking, willingness to make mistakes, role of chance) or fulfillment-focused (personal or professional accomplishment).

Proposals for courses should identify which approaches are present in the syllabi. Arts and Creativity course syllabi must incorporate the following:

• Assignments or exercises whose final product reflects a process of analysis, evaluation, reassessment, and refinement. 
• Projects or exercises that introduce tools or develop information literacy appropriate to the discipline.