ResArts?

“Arts have long been a part of the fabric of the residential experience, we are seeking to rekindle, grow, and expand upon this history. We are working for our undergraduate residences to be a vibrant living and learning space and we believe that should include a creative element – to make art and to experience art – where they live. In fact, our overall goal is to grow a culture where the arts are a part of what it means to come home.”                                                                                                                                               

– Deborah Golder, Dean of Residential Education

The Residential Arts Program launched in 2011, anchored by our second annual event, Learning in and Through Community, where Grammy award winning bassist and author, Victor Wooten, led a program for the entire freshman class during New Student Orientation, utilizing music as a way to explore what it means to live in community.

In its beginning, the program will be experimenting with opportunities for students to experience and participate in the arts, through both smaller and larger scaled events. Opportunities for students to create and initiate their own ideas will also be available.

In the coming years Residential Education aims to bring arts to the students and students to the arts – “whether that be by highlighting the creativity of our students or by bringing artists into communities to share their process and their craft”, Deborah Golder, Dean of Residential Education here at Stanford.

In addition, Residential Education is partnered with Residential & Dining Enterprises and SiCA to identify Arts Spaces throughout the residences and dining halls -- from pianos to performance spaces, from a sound studio to the pottery studio. ResEd is working to enhance and build places for students to create their own art as well.

“People feel driven to represent their experience, or human condition; to throw into relief – to view or think about it; ask questions about meaning...once you create something, it allows us to experience something in a more visceral way. It is a very human endeavor to create – our students are already doing it; we will work to provide even more opportunities and access points for our students.”

– Jim Cadena, Director of the Arts, Residential Arts Program