This entry is an "Of the Month" nomination I submitted for an awesome organization on campus - I'm thrilled to be involved with this group of people:

The average sixth grade classroom offers students restricting desks, dull blackboards, and a clock to count down the minutes until class is finished. The spelling tests are tedious and math assignments repetitive. Their eyes are on the clock, not on the years ahead to college. Wouldn’t that simply mean more class and more tests?

But with “Imagine U at SMU,” a newly established organization at Southern Methodist University’s Meadows Museum and School of the Arts, eyes are directed forward to college life. Their focus is also placed on the Picassos, Manets and Mirós hanging on walls instead of algebraic equations on dusty blackboards. This program welcomes sixth-graders from three Dallas schools to experience a museum, create art, and envision four years at college.

Funded by the Wachovia Foundation, buses transport more than seven-hundred students to and from SMU for three days out of each school’s year. This invitation is greatly appreciated for a financially tight school district. And the rewards are already showing after the first event last week.

“So many kids don’t understand the concept of college,” says Tamytha Smith, Education Coordinator at Meadows Museum. She claims many sixth-graders consider college a one-year experience and don’t realize students can choose their courses and a range of majors, not to mention that they even live at school! Part of the program tours these kids around the SMU campus with SMU students who share their experiences and explain the concept of college. The interaction between college and sixth-grade students is one of the most beneficial aspects. Each young student is also provided a sketchbook to draw in, write notes, and express themselves in ways unfamiliar to them before. Tamytha recalls one boy on the tour who complained about the heat. His classmate, looking up from his drawing of some university buildings and trees responded, “Can’t you just enjoy the beauty of the campus?”

In addition to capturing a piece of college life in their sketchbooks, students use them to complement the learning that takes place within the Meadows Museum and studio. The first day was structured on the portrait. Kids were allowed to explore the museum and discuss famous works of art depicting people and faces. Many have never before entered a museum. But in contrast to a typical art museum where fact after fact is dispensed at each painting, the program encourages rich discussion as students express their feelings and observations. The museum component is also intended to raise their comfort level in galleries and help them understand how relevant art is in their lives. The learning fostered in the museum transitions to studio time. Referencing the masters, students created self portraits at the first session. Everyone was encouraging and complementary, producing beautiful pieces of their own to be displayed at the organization’s final event. This event is scheduled for the end of the school year, as a culmination of the students’ learning and work together. Parents are invited to view the budding artists’ masterpieces and share in their children’s experience at SMU.

Back at their schools, sketchbooks are opened again as kids bring the knowledge and newly considered educational opportunities to class activities. “Imagine U at SMU” may last for only three days at the university, but is integrated into daily sixth-grade class time.

This unique and outstanding organization places the Meadows Museum as a link between college students and sixth-graders, forming friendships and ideas about art and school. These young students are introduced to the value of college education, art, art history, and the creation of art – fundamental aspects of life otherwise overlooked back in the classroom.