First-Year Interdisciplinary Arts Seminar LAS 120H and LAS 121H

First-year seminars are designed to create an active-learning environment enriched by field work, group projects, performances, reading, writing and research. First-year Linehan Artist Scholars attend a seminar every Friday with the Director, Doug Hamby. The Seminar helps to build a sense of community between the freshmen as they share ideas about artworks and what it means to be an artist.

Seminar activities include: 

• working with professional visual and performance artists from the Baltimore Creative Alliance
• frequent attendance at performances and exhibits on and off the UMBC campus
• experiments with play writing, dance making and music composition
• journal writing
• discussions about art contemporary art process
• grant writing practice
• working with Final Cut to make a personal digital story
• making artworks that illustrate important ideas in contemporary art through a collaborative creative process
• workshops with arts faculty

In fall 2011 the first-year seminar students work side by side with professional artists at the Baltimore Creative Alliance as they create works using a variety of media. The Creative Alliance provides support to area artists, promotes Baltimore as a center for creative production and advocates for cultural expression rooted in a sense of place.  This year, seminar students will also attend performances at UMBC and at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Kennedy Center, Roundhouse Theatre, the Baltimore Symphony and the Transmodern Festival. Museums visits include the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the National Gallery and the National Museum of American Art.