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The Hamer Center for Community Design Assistance, established in 1999 and initially funded by a $2 million endowment from the Hamer Foundation—sponsored by Centre County entrepreneur Don Hamer (’68 B.S. Electrical Engineering)—plays a key role in the College of Arts and Architecture’s outreach efforts by helping communities, non-profit organizations and government agencies through planning and design-based research. Directed by Michael Rios, assistant professor of architecture and landscape architecture, the center facilitates design-based inquiry, scholarship and evaluation of community-based practice and education. Two current efforts are the Northern Cheyenne Youth Restoration Art Project (RAP) and the Healthy Routes to Schools Initiative, both of which support the center’s focus on the built environment and on social equity.
Northern Cheyenne Youth Restoration Art Project
Cheyenne art of the past was crafted as a gift for future
generations, a way for families to encourage and educate their younger members,
ultimately providing strategies for survival that have proven invaluable
over the years. 
However,
due to a myriad of issues, art lost its central place in the culture. In
response, the Youth Restoration Art Project (RAP) is a collective effort
of the Boys and Girls Club of the Northern Cheyenne Nation, Native American
artists, university educators and students to restore the arts to the center
of the Northern Cheyenne life. As part of the American Indian Housing Initiative,
in which Penn State is a collaborator, Youth RAP is intended to be a long-term
community arts and design program on the Northern Cheyenne reservation.
Specific strategies include the development and implementation of curriculum
in the media and building arts; design and construction of community spaces
and site installations; and documenting the role of art in Northern Cheyenne
culture—past, present and future. A primary goal is to create new
sites of knowledge centered on civic, social and cultural issues. In addition
to Rios, the main collaborators include Bently Spang, an internationally
recognized Native American artist, and Sam Dennis, former landscape architecture
faculty member at Penn State and current assistant professor of landscape
architecture at the University of Wisconsin.
Healthy Routes to School Initiative
Thanks to poor diets and physical inactivity, today there
are nearly twice as many overweight children and almost three times as many
overweight adolescents as there were in 1980. During the same time period,
children’s walking trips to school have declined 60 percent. Approximately
25 percent of cars on the road during the morning rush hour are providing
school transport, and only 10 percent of children nationwide walk to school
regularly. To address this crisis, the Hamer Center has teamed up with the
Pennsylvania Advocates for Nutrition and Activity (PANA), a statewide obesity
prevention coalition. Tools will be developed and training and technical
assistance will be provided to more than 100 schools throughout Pennsylvania.
Through these efforts, school administrators, teachers, nurses and parents
will learn and implement strategies to create safe, well-maintained walkways
through well-designed, accessible streets and sidewalks. These and other
efforts are part of the Hamer Center’s focus on health and the built
environment, which includes multidisciplinary research projects, the development
of Web-based tools, and design assistance with the goal of creating active
community environments. Funding is being provided through the Pennsylvania
Department of Health, the Department of Community and Economic Development,
and the Department of Transportation.
Art Education Program’s Saturday Art Classes for Kids
More and more parents in the State College area are sending their kids to school on Saturday. But the kids aren’t complaining. That’s because they’re participating in the Penn State Art Education program’s Saturday art classes, offered during the academic year for children in kindergarten through eighth grade. The classes were recently reinstated after a brief break (they were first offered in 1951) and are now growing in popularity among parents looking for an educational and enriching experience for their kids outside of the traditional classroom.
According to Tina Thompson, associate professor of art education and coordinator of the Saturday program, the classes provide a creative outlet for kids while giving the instructors—advanced art education undergraduates and graduate students seeking certification to teach art in the schools—valuable “real world” classroom experience. She says the children love having younger teachers who are enthusiastic and eager to experiment with different art forms. “We know it’s been a good session when the kids are reluctant to stop working when their parents come to pick them up!”
The
classes are held from 9 to 11 a.m. in the School of Visual Arts’ studios,
and instructors take advantage of other resources on campus, including the
Palmer Museum of Art. Because the two-hour sessions are much longer than
the typical art class in school, the children complete in-depth assignments
and receive individualized instruction. Projects have ranged from murals
to videos to works on fabric, in addition to painting and sculpture. The
Penn State students team-teach in groups of three, which helps them to gain
confidence in their teaching skills before embarking on their student teaching
experience the following semester.
The classes, which cost $65 per nine-week session, are offered during the fall and spring semesters and end with a show of student work. The spring session will begin February 11, 2005. For more information, call the Art Education office at 814.865.6570.
Palmer Museum of Art Reaches Out to Patrons of All Ages
The Palmer Museum of Art has implemented a number of outreach programs over the past several years that have raised the museum’s visibility while reinforcing its position as an important cultural resource in central Pennsylvania. Initiated and organized by Dana Carlisle Kletchka, museum educator and affiliate instructor in art education, the programs include Family Day, held once a semester and every summer; an annual Community Day, held during Penn State’s Parents and Families Weekend; and free art production workshops for both children and adults. All programs are sponsored by the Friends of the Palmer Museum of Art and offered at no charge to participants.
