About

MISSION
The Center for Children and Youth (CCY) exists to expand creative learning and pro-social development opportunities for students and teachers of Arkansas, especially serving those in broadly defined disadvantaged situations. The Center for Children & Youth is designed to address issues of intellectual growth, social development, literacy, the arts, and techniques for addressing generational or regional poverty issues. This will be accomplished through teacher professional development, pre-service education, research, as well as curriculum development and dissemination. Hung Pham is the director for CCY, with Dr. Chris Goering, professor of English education, serving as faculty director. Four central programs comprise the current focus of CCY’s work:

 

1) The ARTeacher Fellowship Program for area secondary teachers, in partnership with the Walton Arts Center and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

2) The statewide ARTful Teaching Conference for pre-service teachers and education faculty

3) Collaboration with the nationally recognized Facing History and Ourselves organization, in partnership with the University of Arkansas Center for Multicultural and Diversity Education

4) Beyond School Hours arts-based programs, including the award winning Breakfast Club after-school arts program.

 

Past projects include the long-running Arkansas Studio Project, which designed and supported literacy programs and teaching artist residencies in NW Arkansas Schools, including an extensive partnership with Springdale Public Schools. Additionally, CCY has supported educational initiatives such as the Latinx Theatre Project and an NEH summer institute grant awarded to Professors Lissette Lopez Szwydky-Davis (Department of English) and Sean Connors (Department of Curriculum and Instruction). The Center has also worked extensively with Arkansas A+ Schools and the National A+ Schools Consortium.

HISTORY
The center was established by a generous gift of the Windgate Foundation in 2008 to the University of Arkansas’s College of Education and Health Professions with the purpose of creating more opportunities for area students and teachers to enrich their educational experiences through the arts and creative practice. In 2010, the Center for Children & Youth hosted a national conference in Springdale, AR., focused on the confluence of literacy and the arts. The conference featured speakers from the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, Temple University, the National Council of Teachers of English, and local experts on arts integration approaches to teaching. Since that time, CCY has developed and expanded its programming to include annual conferences, teaching fellowships, professional development workshops, in-school artist residencies, student projects, and more.  Dr. Chris Goering in the Curriculum and Instruction Department was appointed as the center’s first director. The current CCY director is Hung Pham.