PROGRAMS
E
xpertise in the sciences, technology and math (STEM) is touted as the answer to the economic future of America – and can offer financial stability for students who follow that path. Emphasis focuses on how students need skills in these fields to compete in the globalization of world super powers and to be relevant. If that is the case, where is there room for the creative arts? For writers, poets, musicians, teachers? What is the value of a master’s of fine arts (MFA) degree in the midst of these expectations and vision? “We must be careful when we start thinking of universities as job mills – institutions that produce workers,” says Dr. Juan Delgado, professor of English and director of the MFA Creative Writing program at California State University San Bernardino (CSUSB). “Too many people divide education into the hard sciences and soft sciences, creating a false binary. I don’t think we need to reduce education to labor skills.” In this MFA program, students learn to practice valuable academic traits, says Delgado. These include preparation, creative awareness, originality, independence, curiosity, knowledge of literary and
cultural history, open-mindedness, flexibility, fluency, attraction to complexity, aesthetic sophistication, intelligent risk taking, confidence, and teamwork. “We also stress the importance of collaborating with others. All these strike me as key traits for any productive worker.” The value of the creative arts starts at a core level that can expand exponentially. Delgado himself started off as a business major many years ago. “The practical track,” he says. “But then there was trauma in my house, my father passed away and I needed to find an outlet. Once I took my first writing class, I never looked back. I found the food that stuck to my gut.” That “food” has sustained him. Now a poet with four books to his name and a father of three, he knows the value of a creative spirit and bringing forth new voices for expression, creativity, and critical thinking that can lead to community change, social justice and a higher purpose. Professor Chad Luck also makes a case for the value of humanities and the purpose of higher education. “Is it simply a form of advanced job training or is it also an opportunity for cultivating self-
Rebels with a Cause: An MFA Program for Future Innovators By Sylvia Mendoza 10 |
HISPANIC OUTLOOK
|
JULY 14, 2014
Dr. Juan Delgado
PROGRAMS equal parts focus, determination, and intelligent awareness and awareness of other cultures and trarisk taking…we will fine-tune our critical abilities ditions? Is it a crucial part of maintaining a healthy to incorporate meaningful rebellion in our own democracy with critically-aware citizens? Is it an work. We will learn from the smartest and boldest opportunity to reflect on ways to serve your comrebels with a cause.” munity and country?” “This type of intelligent risk taking is an integral It is this critical thinking that brings about societal element of the social justice perspective on creative change. Luck also notes that even though the philowriting that is so unique about our program,” says sophical answer is that “life isn’t all about money,” Lemus. students of the humanities are highly sought after by It is these types of classes that seem to challenge law, industry, the corporate world, and other career Coyote grad students about the value of their own tracks because they possess high-level skills in critwork, and to become rebels with a cause, as well. ical thinking, verbal communication, creativity, and One such cause can be working with a unique collaborative work, which “encourages empathy and program developed with local elementary school affection for a broad range of human experience… teachers. SCIPP – Stuacross cultural bounddents and Coyotes: Inaries.” struction in Poetry and According to the Too many people divide Prose – focuses on grad CSUSB website, the twoeducation into the hard students bringing creative year MFA degree offers a writing to young students, concentration in either sciences and soft sciences, so that they can have a fiction or poetry, with a voice and be the shapers focus on literature or creating a false binary. of their own futures. It is teaching. Each student I don’t think we need to a collaborative effort with will complete a publishEnglish faculty, other deable manuscript of fiction reduce education to labor partments, elementary or poetry. Through workskills.” school teachers, students, shops, visiting writers, parents and activists. This seminars, the study of litDr. Juan Delgado, director of the MFA effort bridges the commuerature and hands-on exCreative Writing program at CSUSB. nity with CSUSB, an imperience in the commuportant factor in helping nity, the program helps young students – many of students actualize as writthem from poverty-stricken areas – see themselves ers in a changing world. as future college students. It is this “hands-on experience in the community” that is powerful and demonstrates the true value of Visionary Voices of Young Students and Coyotes an MFA program. CSUSB grad students – “CoyAfter MFA grad student and SCIPP volunteer Alex otes” – can get out of the classroom, out of their Avila saw the film, “Waiting for Superman”, alarming comfort zone and step into the community not only statistics struck him. He learned more than 80 perto share their works, but to teach younger students – cent of those incarcerated can barely read or write the next generation of creative thinkers – that their past a third grade level – and many of those are peovoices matter and that they, too, can be agents of ple of color. He works in juvenile and foster facilities, change. helping develop competency skills that will allow youth in these systems to change their lifestyles. “The Coyote Rebels with a Cause challenge has been tremendous and it feels like I’m Assistant Professor Felicia Luna Lemus offers a pushing a sleeping elephant up a hill,” says Avila. class, “Punk Nerd Revolution!: Taking Intelligent SCIPP, however, seems to give him hope. “SCIPP Risks in Fiction Writing,” which is about helping is breaking all cultural, social, and academic barriers students strive to create compelling works of ficthat prevent at-risk families from engaging in acation. The class description states that students are demia,” explains Avila. “It offers another alternative “guided by the notion that, like any truly brilliant that provides intervention and prevention to change act of insurrection, genuinely innovative writing is
“
HISPANIC OUTLOOK
|
JULY 14, 2014
| 11
PROGRAMS the course of where young people end up in college and not in jail.” Involvement with SCIPP can bring possibilities never before imagined. This is the way Avila sees it: “The program develops young scholars to become future teachers, writers, lawyers, counselors, journalists, advocates, or future entrepreneurs. ‘Poets’ or literate scholars have been at the forefront of technology, politics, and sciences. Artists are being hired today by companies like Google, Toyota, and Apple to name a few, to assist with product design and marketing. Literate scholars are always in high demand to help write for presidents and government officials. SCIPP is just as important as any engineering project, not just in steering families away from poverty, but also in shaping future leaders.” These future leaders benefit from this partnership, learning different perspectives, having a voice and breaking chains of poverty to reach tangible goals. William Beshears, 2009 recipient of the Golden Apple Award, and teacher of the year at Salinas Elementary in San Bernardino, founded SCIPP with the intent of making opportunities more visible. “In our district, we have a rural component and gang violence at the same time. We are literally on the other side of the train tracks from the campus. Kids have never set foot at Cal State; didn’t even
dream they could. I kept wondering why there was such a disconnect, but I still wanted to bring college to the classroom.” Seeing the importance of collaboration and perspective, Beshears and co-founder Larry Light, approached Delgado. “You have to go toward your fear,” Beshears says. “We’re scared of poetry but that shouldn’t be a reason why our students don’t get that in the curriculum.” SCIPP came from a spirit of volunteerism, explains Delgado. Grad students worked with Beshears’ students two hours every Friday on their campus or at Cal State. Initially there was a loose pedagogy so they could analyze the situation and the students and develop their own approach. “It was a meaningful way of thinking of themselves and how they can contribute to an important population that needs it,” says Delgado. “They challenged them, had high expectations, and did not teach down to them. The students connected. When Alex goes out and works with kids, for example, they see themselves in him. Education seems more tangible.” For educators, it’s been a tough couple of years, says Beshears. “It was medicine for us. It refilled our spirit. I was shocked at the amount of writing that came from the kids that would have taken us
MFA Juan Delgado Team.
12 |
HISPANIC OUTLOOK
|
JULY 14, 2014
PROGRAMS months and months of regular teaching to get to. What on earth is going on, I asked myself? I couldn’t explain it, but I knew it was magical.” Beshears was also humbled. “We think we know our kids very well,” he says. “I thought I knew Tamara and her family as well as a teacher can know them, for example. It was a slap in the face to see how much I didn’t know. One special ed student wrote a poem on bullying that silenced people in the room and made them cry. ‘What is it about me?’ he asked. ‘“Why me?’” I saw that this is not a supplemental program. It’s about excellence and higher education and that our students are already college material.” They see themselves as college material, too. “They already belong at the university,” says Delgado. “They’re not intimidated. They work here, study here, and it isn’t a scary place any more. Their families come here for the community events and music series and claim it as their own. They feel comfortable here. They were landlocked, but not anymore.” The SCIPP experience opens minds to more. Tristan Acker, another SCIPP volunteer and musician, wants to start an after school program that develops musical talent in downtown San Bernardino, the neighborhood where he also grew up. “If you weren’t a football player or in engineering,
there was nothing for you,” he says. “Geeky kids like me have to have something to do growing up in the hood. You need to exercise your mind.” His idea is to start a hip hop “gymnasium” where they can have a mental workout – writing and reading songs, making beats, thinking outside the box, and performing. “Creativity is the highest form of understanding,” says Beshears. “Students need to be creative to push through any field. Einstein was more an artist than a scientist. He thought critically. Look at NASA and how those scientists think. They play. They experiment. They’re okay with failure. That’s artistry. That’s success. That’s what our students learn. It’s part of the human experience.” Value of CSUSB MFA Program: Innovative Global Citizens Delgado believes his students are constructing their own careers and are actively being the “architects” of their futures while impacting others along the way. “We need people with drive, vision, and imagination, not just workers who have a set of skills that might be outdated within their own life time,” says Delgado. “We are graduating global citizens who are mindful and responsible to the communities that nurture them.”
A Multicultural Faculty is the key to
Diversifying Your Institution Start Now
by advertising in
Call our experienced sales staff at:
1.800.549.8280 HISPANIC OUTLOOK
|
JULY 14, 2014
| 13
