Mason Gross School of the Arts, the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, and the School of Arts and Sciences have partnered to launch a new minor, Creative Expression and the Environment, in fall 2023. The minor is a multidisciplinary program in which students gain familiarity with fundamentals of environmental issues and learn to respond to them through creative expression in a variety of disciplines and media in the arts and humanities. Based on the notion that the arts and humanities have the capacity to engage, promote reflection and empathy, demonstrate care, and inspire action, the minor in Creative Expression and the Environment will empower students to imagine and help to build a future that is rooted in environmental knowledge and the quest for environmental sustainability and justice.
The minor was designed by Rebecca Cypess, MGSA associate dean for academic affairs and professor of musicology; Mary Nucci, associate teaching professor in the Department of Human Ecology; and Jorge Marcone, associate dean in the Division of Humanities and a professor of Spanish and Portuguese and comparative literature.
“A major point to why this minor is so valuable is that students will have a basic grounding in environmental science, humanities, and arts,” Nucci said in the The Daily Targum. “And, given the range of possible electives, (students will) be able to follow their own interests to build out their education in environmental concerns.”
Read more about the minor and its learning outcomes and requirements and watch a video with “Introduction to Environmental Arts” professor and MFA alum Rita Leduc, who says her process-driven class is about “figuring out how to love the world and live in the world.”