The President of our college, Scott Evenbeck, is an ever-steady supportor of the arts. He has been a huge champion for the Arts in NYC course, and it was his idea to employ working artists in the Arts in NYC courses so that our students could experience various forms of artistic creation with an individual active in the arts world.

With this in mind, the artist-in-residence program was born. I was charged with coordinating it this year (2014); we are piloting the idea by having three different  artists in three of the nine sections of Arts in NYC classes offerend in Fall II, 2014.

Each artist teaches three two-hour classes with one group of students = one week of class. The idea is that this week will be an intense study of that art form through the act of doing. The suggested format is that the first class is an introduction, the second class should build into a project/piece, and the final class will revise the work and perform/present it.

I am documenting the artists' work in these classes to try to evaluate what the artists bring to the course and how the students react to the artists.

Hopefully, the documentation of the classes this year will lead to growing this artist-in-residence program so that each Arts in NYC course will have its own artist-in-residnece next year.

Oh, and yes, for those of you wondering, the artists are paid to do this. We believe in paying artists for their professional expertise and work--No starving artists by the fault of our school!