The Center Student Grants program successfully ran from 2002-2010. Working from the program's model for socially based, collaborative projects, the program evolved in 2010 to the IMPACT Social Entrepreneurship Awards.

Center Student Grants funded projects collaboratively designed by CCA students and their community partners, thereby serving one of the Center’s primary goals: to bridge the studio-based practices of art, design, writing, and architecture with the larger community.

The projects address issues of social justice, diversity, community development, and education. After a rigorous and selective application process that includes writing a formal grant proposal, students may be awarded up to $3,000.

View the Center Student Grant Presentations on our
YouTube channel.

2009–10 Center Student Grant projects

Power Soccer Equipment for Disabled Athletes

Nicole Knox, MFA Design, first-year graduate
Community Partner: Bay Area Outreach and Recreation Program, Berkeley, California

This project will engage in a collaborative design process to develop new and innovative power soccer equipment. CCA MFA Design student Nicole Knox will partner with a local power soccer team, through the Berkeley nonprofit organization Bay Area Outreach and Recreation Program for the project. Power soccer is a modified version of soccer designed specifically for power wheelchair users. Participants include persons with quadriplegia, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, head trauma, stroke, spinal cord injury and other disabilities.

Gender Identity, Guangzhou, China

Abby Chen, Visual & Critical Studies first-year graduate
Community Partner: Southern China Women Artists Collective (SCWAC), Guangzhou, China

Gender Identity is a project working in collaboration with Southern China Women Artists Collective on a three-day symposium and workshop, taking place in Guangzhou, China. Participants, including artists, scholars, performers, filmmakers, writers and critics, will explore issues of gender and artistic expression—developing strategies and professional development opportunities to engage and cultivate wider recognition and opportunities for such expression.

Support a Dream

Crystal Vera, Fashion Design, third-year undergraduate
Community Partner: Roosevelt High School of the Arts, Fresno, California

Support a Dream is a four-week fashion design workshop designed for High School students at Roosevelt High School of the Arts in Fresno, California. Students will take workshops where they will be creating and drawing figures and garments utilizing a variety of media. During this course, students will develop portfolios that can be used to apply for college and other future opportunities.

Youth Artists Resisting: An Education and Exhibition Collaboration Between San Francisco and Haiti

Allison Rowe Social Practice, first-year graduate
Community Partner: Out of Site Center for Arts Education, San Francisco, California and Timoun Atis Rezistan, Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Youth Artists Resisting: An Education and Exhibition Collaboration Between San Francisco and Haiti is a community art project that seeks to facilitate conversation, art production, art sales and youth empowerment by using the methodology of artists from the Port-au-Prince collective Ti Moun Atis Rezistan (Children’s Resistance) as the basis for a free class offered to San Francisco public high school students through Out of Site: Center for Arts Education. At the end of the class, a public exhibition and silent auction of art produced by the class participants will be sold with all proceeds going to the Ti Moun Atis Rezistan to assist them in continuing to offer free space and art lessons to Haitian youth.
http://www.outofsite-sf.org/

Inside Discussions

Katherin Canton, Community Arts, third-yeard undergraduate
Community Partner: Plaza East Apartments, San Francisco

Partnering with Plaza East Apartments, a series of events will be held to engage residents in a dialogue on the architectural design and planning of public housing sites. Exchanging personal stories and surfacing issues related to the social ramifications of housing policies and politics, participants will share food along with their experiences of living in public housing. A series of dinner dialogues will be followed by a portrait day honoring participants, who will each receive a professionally printed and framed photograph of their family.

We Players on Alcatraz Puppet Partnership

Anna Whitehead, MFA Social Practice, second-year graduate student
Community Partner: We Players, Alcatraz Island San Francisco

Joining with We Players in their site-specific performance residency on Alcatraz Island, this partnership project engages at-risk youth, people incarcerated, and those on probation in the Bay Area in the collaborative creation and construction of large-scale puppets and masks for a performance addressing themes of access, isolation, incarceration, justice and redemption. Participants will exchange personal experiences and stories related to project themes while collaborating with residency poets, dancers and actors working together on the culminating, multidisciplinary, performance piece.
http://we-alcatraz.blogspot.com/

Cactus Theater

Ann Schnake, MFA Social Practice, first-year graduate
Community Partner: ArtsChange, Richmond, California

Engaging stories of bravery and resilience, this multidisciplinary project collaborates with a group of Richmond youth in developing visual and performative work. Creating an installation and performance space, the work will be initially situated as a dinner dialogue between youth, artists and medical providers in Richmond and then be re-presented in local venues.