Eastern Connecticut State University hosted a three-week Summer Arts Institute from July 11 to28. The program, “Kinetic and Visual Performance: Enacting the Common Core through the Arts,” invited rising juniors and seniors from Windham High School and Arts at the Capitol Theatre (ACT) to participate in a college course free of charge, with the opportunity to gain college credit. Students learned how to develop their English language arts and literacy, math and socio-emotional-cognitive skills.

Kristen Morgan and Alycia Bright Holland, assistant professors of performing arts, and program coordinator Nicola Johnson, taught the three-week course. Two current theatre majors, Nicole Garcia and Sinque Tavares, served as teaching assistants. The course ended with a public performance for friends, family and the community in the studio theatre on July 28. “We had a terrific group of students this year,” said Morgan. “They really grew a great deal from start to finish.” Theatre majors who have served as mentors to the students throughout the summer will continue to do so throughout the 2016-17 academic year.

Students were enrolled in “The 180,” a course that combined a contextual and experimental approach from the perspective of the artist-practitioner and their work onstage, in film, dance, video and other representational mediums. The course, using hands-on participation in experiential exercises and projects, emphasized key concepts, approaches and methodologies as practiced globally, from the past and present.

Faculty are hoping to expand the program next summer in order to include students from a larger geographic area and perhaps broader subject matter. Eastern’s Summer Arts Institute was made possible with support from a Bridge-A-Grant, provided by the Board of Regents for Higher Education, the governing body of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities System. Additional funding was provided by in-kind support from university sources.