Community-partnered project-based studio pedagogy: Developing a framework and exploring the impact on faculty in art and design higher education

Young would-be artists flock to art schools to learn from masters and immerse themselves in a study of the aesthetic histories, techniques, and theories that will inform their practices. However, the emergence of community-partnered project-based (CP) studio courses at many independent art colleges signals a fundamental shift in art and design higher education. Though room remains for interior-focused individual practice, a growing importance is placed on a curriculum that emphasizes community-partnered, project-based, interdisciplinary, and collaborative service-learning, and the goal of my dissertation research is to better understand this phenomenon, both the experience of teaching these courses and how they might influence faculty and the institutions more broadly. My primary research question is, How do faculty understand and describe the pedagogical methodologies involved in teaching community-partnered project-based courses (CP) in art and design higher education? And, my secondary question is, How has teaching in CP courses influenced faculty\u27s pedagogy in subsequent traditional studio courses? And, in order to situate my research, it is helpful to explore the contemporary context that has given rise to CP coursework in art school education. For my dissertation, I conducted a qualitative phenomenological research project consisting of in-depth interviews with 18 faculty members teaching CP courses at three independent art colleges: Art Center College of Design, Maryland Institute College of Art, and Otis College of Art and Design. Interviews with six administrators and review of published program materials enhanced the data gathered from faculty interviews. Based on my findings and borrowing from various service-learning frameworks, I articulate a CP pedagogical framework for art and design higher education that focuses on flexibility and nimbleness, sharing authority, collaboration and interdisciplinarity, reflection, and social issues and research. My research also contributes to the literature on how service-learning pedagogies impact faculty employing them. Finally, I discuss implications of this study including the impact CP studio pedagogies may have on art schools, more broadly, and ways in which higher education institutions can support faculty engaged in this important work