The Arts' Role in Critical Thinking and Learning
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
LIVING LEGACY Heritage tree fund takes root | PG. 20 SUMMER 2014 | VOL.3 NO.2 VOL.3 The arts’ role in critical thinking and learning THE BIG PICTURE Thearts’ role By Veronica Lorson Fowler in critical thinking & learning Iowa State’s tradition of integrating the arts into its campus, culture and curriculum Key to the city In the Products of Public Space Studio, students provides the foundation for students to address Ryan Pecinovsky, Joshua Larson-Konar, Christian the complex, open-ended challenges of our age. Wehr, Ryan Nieland, and Kate Whisler (l. to r.) bring the three Cs – creativity, collaboration, and complex problem-solving – to making Iowa’s capital city a more vibrant place to live, work and play. 2 SUMMER 2014 / 3 Photo:/ John C. ThomasSUMMER Fisheye 2014 THE BIG PICTURE HE NEXT BIG IDEA JUST professionals with narrow, technical solve them unless we come at them Act is that a democracy can only be MIGHT BE INCUBATING backgrounds who will solve them. from as many different angles as we can.” sustained with an educated citizenry,” IN THE BASEMENT OF Instead, the future belongs to those In fact, the university is engaged in a Pohlman says. “Our early leaders MORRILL HALL. There, leaders who can tackle the big challenges – national effort to bring greater emphasis recognized that the arts and culture are TIowa State University industrial design world population, famine, climate to this paradigm. In November, Iowa part of that, that the arts are needed to major Christian Wehr is working away change, water scarcity, political strife – State will host the first national conference create world-class, informed citizens.” in a spacious room that is part classroom, with expertise in their discipline and of the Alliance for the Arts in Research A famous example is Anson Marston, part gallery, and part construction site. creative approaches that cross disciplines. Universities. Made up of 30 top-tier who established Iowa State’s premier Called the Products of Public Space, “Iowa State is the perfect place for research institutions, the alliance was engineering college. In the 1930s, Marston the interdisciplinary, experimental this to happen,” says Luis Rico-Gutierrez, created to expand institutional support taught a required art appreciation class learning studio provides students a dean of the College of Design. In keeping and share best practices for arts-integrated to prepare engineers for their lives in place to apply complex problem-solving with its land-grant mission, Iowa State interdisciplinary activity that not only business and in their communities. methods to public space issues in provides students with a high quality engages the university but also the Glass – as an area of study and a greater Des Moines, and create projects Renewed and education, with an emphasis on working world beyond. Focus locus medium – has played a distinctive role in that can make the city a more vibrant renewable together to create and share knowledge Ingrid Lilligren, chair of the integrated The Focus program Iowa State’s tradition of connecting science urban environment. Sponsored by Iowa that benefits the greater good. As a result, studio arts program and conference began in 1959 as a and art across academic disciplines. In It’s definitely a creative space here in State’s Bioeconomy students are engaged from day one in co-chair, said Iowa State is making a name two-week festival of fact, when ceramics engineering faculty Institute, the annual arts-related experiences, the studio: The walls are lined with the creative, collaborative process of for itself as a leader in the recent trend established the Gaffer’s Guild in the 1960s, biorenewables art bringing artists, film illustrated renderings, shelves of scale competition provides problem-solving, Rico-Gutierrez says. toward interdisciplinary collaboration, critics, musicians, they set up glassblowing operations not models, sketches of projects in progress, students the opportunity He sees this evidenced in some of with an emphasis on creativity. sculptors and more to in the fine arts department, as is typical technical diagrams, and inspirational to create artwork the awards students in the college are In the 1970s, in response to the Iowa State’s campus. with many universities, but in the quotes. In the middle of the room, Wehr that reflects BEI’s walking away with. “Whenever we explosive expansion of knowledge, Over time, Focus College of Engineering. (See “Melding is experimenting with white paint on mission: economic, enter competitions, we nearly always universities moved toward more metamorphosed into a art and science,” p. 9.) environmental and different celebration of paper to develop a visual theme for a come away with firsts or seconds,” he discipline-specific education. Now Christian Petersen, Iowa State’s social sustainability to the arts, one in which solar project. A former mechanical advance development of says. “No other institution pulls together the tide is turning, and increasingly students, whether art artist-in-residence from 1934 to engineering major, Wehr switched to an biorenewable resources interdisciplinary teams the way we do. universities have realized their students majors or engineers, 1955, laid the literal groundwork for interdisciplinary design degree program for the production That makes our teams unbeatable.” also need a broad education that helps were welcome to integrating the arts on campus through after taking an engineering class focused of materials, fuels, For the past six years, for example, them think in bigger-picture ways. express themselves via sculpture that elevates seemingly humble energy, and chemicals. the arts. Focus continues on imagination and creativity. Iowa State teams have swept the student Part of that broad education is an expressions of academic disciplines, Students are encouraged to foster creativity in The idea of blending the linear and to think about their art division of the Hospitality Design exposure to the arts and the highly Iowa State students such as a veterinarian cradling an ailing technical discipline of engineering with in terms of collaboration Awards, an international competition complex creative problem-solving the today through grant- puppy. His art has led generations of the wide-open creative challenges of the and sustainability, and for the best designs in luxury hotels, arts require, Lilligren says. “We talk funded art projects. Iowa State students to understand that design world intrigues him. “Engineering to integrate sustainable restaurants, spas, and other architecture. about thinking outside the box or their education is not just an amassing taught me how to solve,” Wehr says. elements and even Their success is in part because Iowa inside the box. But for an artist or of facts and skills; they have a larger, biorenewable materials “Design is teaching me how to think.” State competes with students assembled designer, there is no box. At Iowa State, grander purpose in the world. into their compositions. from different disciplines, including we are integrating that capacity for Pohlman says this integration of The post-box paradigm architecture, interior design, landscape innovative thinking.” the arts into Iowa State’s campus and Iowa State has a long tradition of architecture, and community and curriculum is as essential today. “Eighty integrating the arts within its campus, Above: regional planning. Integrate to innovate Above: percent of what sighted people learn is “Memento Mori” “On the Cutting Edge” culture, and curriculum, providing Beate Schmittmann, dean of the College Lynette Pohlman, director and chief through visual interpretation. The visual Natalie Buskohl Kathleen Albright students countless conduits for exploring Mixed media of Liberal Arts and Sciences and a curator of University Museums, points Ceramic and textile skills of comprehending and synthesizing the creative and human connections physicist by background, agrees, saying out that there has been a focus on our world are important to understanding within the sciences. Today, this tradition that an interdisciplinary approach, with integrating the arts into every corner and transforming it. Expression of is taking on greater purpose: As the the arts and humanities at the table, is and element of the university since thought and ideas transforms people world’s problems become ever more critical. “The problems we are facing Iowa State’s founding in 1858. and places – an educational vision that pressing and complex, it won’t be are just too big. We are not going to “The central premise of the Morrill is core to Iowa State.” 4 / SUMMER 2014 SUMMER 2014 / 5 All works of art are either part of the Christian Petersen Art Collection and/or the Art on Campus Collection, Iowa State University. THE BIG PICTURE IOWA STATE HISTORY 1937-38 – The Gentle Doctor In fact, University Museums has a and each other in a team in creative Art among – and about – us Hixson-Lied Small Animal Hospital highly successful Visual Literacy and ways. “In a way, this is structuring The tradition of integrating art related to Iowa State’s This Petersen sculpture became recognized internationally as a symbol of veterinary medicine, starting with Iowa State’s Learning Program, which involves in learning according to creative thinking mission and academics on campus dates back to the part curating special, small exhibits for itself,” Hopkins says. “Creative thinking, College of Veterinary Medicine. 1930s, when Christian Petersen became the nation’s faculty