|
Noreen
Scott Garrity, MFA, is Deputy Director for
Outreach/Curator
of Education & Community Arts at
the Rutgers-Camden
Center for the Arts (BFA, University of Delaware;
MFA, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago). Ms.
Garrity has received numerous awards for her work, including
a 1998 Applause Award for Accomplishment in the Field
of Arts Education from the Markeim Arts Center and two
Merit Awards for Excellence in Administration from Rutgers
University. Before coming to the Stedman Gallery,
Ms. Garrity
has taught art on the college level at Bucks County Community
College and was Program Coordinator at both the Please
Touch Museum in Philadelphia and at the Chicago Children's
Museum.
During
her seventeen-year
tenure as the curator of arts education, RCCA has added
fifteen arts education and community arts programs to
our offerings. The
original museum program begun in 1987 (now called “Art
Across the Curriculum”) is still going strong, still
serves mainly Camden schoolchildren, and is still free
of charge to Camden groups.
The
newest art education programs at the center are “arts
integration” programs which help to build true, meaningful
partnerships between the arts organization and the schools,
and teacher and student participants. These multi-layered
projects are complex—some programs take place at
the center, some take place at the school(s), teachers
receive professional development to bring new arts skills
back into the classroom, and new curriculum is written
with the assistance of teachers, art education staff, and
teaching artists to further infuse the arts throughout
the school. Studies have shown the many positive
effects of an arts-rich school environment on both students
and teachers, such as higher job satisfaction for teachers,
enhanced critical thinking and problem solving skills in
students, along with the ability to make stronger, meaningful
connections between academic disciplines, the outside world,
and to everyday life.
Since
1987, Rutgers-Camden
Center for the Arts (RCCA) has provided
innovative arts-based programs designed to serve the
children, older youth, teachers, adults, and seniors
of Camden, New Jersey. In response to increasing
demand for these services, RCCA’s Education, Enrichment & Community
Arts Programs (EECAP) have grown significantly in quality,
scope, and depth.
|
