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Place Matters at UCSD
New Classes Focus on Improving Student Climate
Ioana Patringenaru | January 22, 2007
About two dozen students walked, then jumped and tumbled their way across a dance studio deep in the bowels of Galbraith Hall. One stopped and, slowly, all of them froze as part of a dance exercise to sharpen their movements.
“Think about your timing,” said Grace Shinhae Jun, a graduate student and instructor. Try to make it lightening-fast, she said, snapping her fingers.
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| Students tried to translate poetry into dance movements Friday during a Place Matters course. |
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A diverse group was taking part Friday in a two-quarter class that tries to make students feel more connected to their campus and their college. The courses also are part of a broad project dubbed “Place Matters,” which includes Art Power!, Eleanor Roosevelt, Thurgood Marshall and Sixth colleges. It is the campus’ most comprehensive interdisciplinary art initiative to date, said Martin Wollesen, artistic director of Art Power!
“It’s a direct reflection of the creative, dynamic environment that UCSD offers,” Wollesen said.
The project came about in response to the 2005 Undergraduate Student Experience and Satisfaction survey. “We need to connect more deeply what we learn in the classroom and what we practice in life, engaging faculty, students, staff and community in this conversation,” Wollesen said.
During fall quarter courses, students talked about space, place and community. They researched the campus’ history and current events. This quarter, they keep journals and will use their research and writings to make art, including poetry and dance. A Brooklyn-based dance ensemble, the Urban Bush Women, will work with them to refine their creations. Then students will perform on campus in late February.
So far, educators said they’ve seen positive results. In one Sixth College survey, all students who took Place Matters classes said it had made them feel more connected to UCSD, said Provost Gabriele Wienhausen.
Sixth College students researched the campus’ history, going back to the time when American Indians lived on the land. Walter Munk invited them to his home and talked about being the first graduate student at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Students just didn’t want to leave, Wienhausen recalls. “It was oral history at its best,” she said.
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| Urban Bush Women, a Brooklyn-based dance group will work with students. |
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Then Urban Bush Women came to town for a few days. “That was an epiphany,” said Wienhausen, who co-teaches one of the Place Matters courses. None of the students in her class were dance majors. But after working with Urban Bush Women, they all came to feel they could perform.
“I wish all classes were like this,” said Martha Sanchez, a Sixth College senior. “You experience so much. You grow so much.”
Sanchez, an urban studies and planning major, said she originally enrolled to learn more about creating community. Then she fell in love with the course’s hands-on, proactive approach. She now feels like she’s interacting more with the campus community. “I feel like I’m making a greater impact,” she said.
Place Matters classes feel more like an extracurricular activity, which help students stay connected to their college, said Moorisha Taylor, a third year student at Eleanor Roosevelt (ERC).
“I like the freedom of the class,” said Taylor, a management science major. “We can use self-expression.”
Last quarter, she and her classmates at ERC talked about the issue of place, and touched on culture, race, gender and class. Taylor wrote a paper about class and privilege among black students at UCSD.
Friday, Taylor, Sanchez and her classmates listened intently to guest speaker Roberto Tejada, who teaches in the visual arts department. He talked about writing poetry and urged them to create tension between experiences, expression and meaning in their work. Then he gave them about 10 minutes to make up poems by mixing sentences picked from journal entries.
A group of five students, including Taylor, got up to read first. “Music permeates,” they chanted. “However, I thought this particular situation needed to be examined closer,” one student said. “Art has power,” they chanted together again.
A little later, Jun gave students 10 minutes to create a sequence of five to 10 movements based on their poems. Pretty soon, everyone was standing, twirling, jumping and stumping. Students sported broad grins and generally looked like they were having a good time. Taylor’s group undulated in a wave, came together, then slid to the ground. Jun changed dance moves, then mixed them with other students’ texts. “It’s totally arbitrary, but it works,” she pointed out.
Sixth College students will perform Feb. 20, followed by ERC and Marshall Feb. 21. All three colleges will put on a campuswide performance with Urban Bush Women Feb. 27.
But Place Matters doesn’t stop with the performances, Wienhausen said. The goal is to develop a different way of doing business, which will help students in the future. For instance, Sixth College has learned to look at assets that students, staff members and faculty bring to the table beyond their obvious roles on campus. The method, called asset mapping, leads to a better understanding of the community. For example, you might be an administrator, but might also be a little league coach or a singer, Wienhausen said. That means you have a treasure-trove of resources that can be used to connect with others and build community. Sixth College also is crafting stories in different mediums, which it will use to welcome new students, Wienhausen said. She added she hopes Place Matters will become one of UCSD’s signature events.
Zandi De Jesus, an ERC senior and teaching assistant, has no doubt that Place Matters will have a significant impact.
“There’s such power in art, in theatre, in dance, in music,” she said. “Everyone can access that, everyone can relate to that.”
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