How do we cultivate a sense of Belonging in the creative academic environment?
The Fall 2023 Creative Citizens Series is a series of engagements led by faculty, students, and guests, which attempts to unpack the theme of Belonging in times of Othering fueled by extreme social and ecological antagonisms. Seeing Belonging as a foundational pillar for the community's well-being, this series seeks to build a common understanding of Belonging as an inherently embodied experience moving between comfort and discomfort. Belonging is not about consensus but about holding space and embracing a spectrum of perspectives.
The goal of the Fall 2023 Creative Citizens Series is to set in motion a reciprocal and generative dialogue among the members of the CCA community about the conditions for Belonging as a space of safety, care, and virtuous mutualism. This teaching module is a living curriculum that records and supplements the series, providing teachers and students with useful tools and ideas that can be implemented in the classroom.
"After an individual’s basic needs are met, the door is opened to experience a sense of Belonging. Belonging cultivates feelings that the individual matters, they are valued, they feel safety, and it is conveyed that they are indispensable to the group. A sense of Belonging is relational, reciprocal, and dynamic."
—Tricia Brand, CCA Vice President of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging
Recommended reading: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging at CCA
Activity: Community Agreements
Creating Community Agreements is a foundational practice to establish a baseline of equity and inclusion in the classroom and to co-create a shared collection of ground rules. Work with your students or teammates at CCA to create a collection of Community Agreements, prioritizing inclusion, accountability, and respect.
Below is an example of Community Agreements developed by the Decolonial School at the CCA Decolonial Unconference in February 2020:
- STAY ENGAGED
- Remove distractions and access needs in order to be present.
- EVERY VOICE IS IMPORTANT
- Step up, step back. Regardless of experience, age, title, etc., we all have something to contribute.
- LISTEN ACTIVELY & COMPASSIONATELY
- Try to understand before being understood.
- MAKE ROOM FOR MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES AT ONCE
- Think beyond binaries.
- BE WILLING TO BE MESSY AND STAY FLEXIBLE
- Learning and growing can feel uncomfortable.
- THROW GLITTER, NOT SHADE
- Invest in yourself, invest in each other.
- MOVE AT THE SPEED OF TRUST
- We are coming from different lived experiences.
- SPEAK FROM THE “I”
- Speak from your own lived experience.
- STORIES STAY, LESSONS GO
- Honor confidentiality.
“Belonging is deeply known through experience and is also a concept that can be more deeply known through educational understanding. Belonging has been studied in many fields such as psychology and social sciences. It is something that is felt individually, across groups and expressed through systems. Belonging is both aspirational and practical, something that we strive towards across society and something we build through our daily and momentary actions. It is complex and situational, it is interconnected to many variables of our society. For these reasons and many more, Belonging has been hard to describe and to define.”
Recommended readings by the Othering and Belonging Institute:
Activity: stories of us
stories of us is an audio project by 2023 CCA@CCA Student Fellow, Layla Namak (MArch 2025). Layla's project invites CCA faculty, staff, and students to record themselves reflecting on experiences of Belonging and Othering. Belonging and Othering cannot exist without one other, and the aim is to represent a diversity of experiences that embody our community. This is a place for your voice to be heard, and we welcome you as you are.
Fall 2023 Belonging Events
The CCA 2023 Faculty Exhibition, stories of us, was inspired by Layla Namak's audio project and featured work by current CCA faculty that explores personal stories of Belonging, care, and community.
Participating artists included Shalini Agrawal, Verda Alexander, Kim Anno, Curtis Hidemasa Arima, Sholeh Asgary, Bob Aufuldish, Tim Belonax, Rachel Berger, Rebekah Bloyd, Julian Carter, Nelson Chan, Gregory Climer, Marilyn da Silva, Sara Dean, John De Fazio, Melinda Luisa de Jesús, Mark Donohue, Mia Feuer, Max Gavrich, Caroline Goodwin, Lynda Grose, Mara Holt Skov, chris hamamoto, Taraneh Hemami, Rob Hugel, Thomas Ingalls, Chris Johnson, Steve Jones, Janette Kim, Yina Kim, Heesoo Kwon, Katherine Lam, Christina La Sala, Ana Llorente, Ian MacColl, Adam McCauley, Dan McHale, Nasim Moghadam, Ranu Mukherjee, Lydia Nakashima Degarrod, Erik Parra, Erik Scollon, Pallavi Sharma, Matt Silady, Peter Simensky, Deborah Stein, Jon Stich, Sunny A. Smith, Jon Sueda, Chris Treggiari, Aynne Valencia, Michael Washington, Michael Wertz, Anne Wolf, and Corey Wolffs.
stories of us was on view August 30 through October 20, 2023, at the CCA Campus Gallery at 1480 17th Street, San Francisco.
The Tea Time Talks on Belonging series invited members of the CCA community to talk about creative practices that amplify Belonging through pedagogy and art. Our panelists encouraged attendees to engage in thinking about Belonging through various mediums, including conversation and making. Hosted by Shalini Agrawal and moderated by Layla Namak, Tea Time Talks on Belonging took place on Thursdays or Wednesdays between 11am and 11:50am.
- Thursday, September 21, 11am | CCA Campus Gallery | …& with Steve Jones
- Thursday, October 5, 11am | CCA Campus Gallery | ENOUGH Stitch n’ Bitch with Anne Wolf
- Thursday, November 16, 11am | CCA Campus Gallery | Both/And: The Inherent Tensions Building Belonging with Tricia Brand
- Thursday, December 7, 11am | CCA Campus Gallery | Closing Conversation with the full panel
CCA@CCA co-presented three guest lectures exploring Belonging in fall 2023:
- Wednesday, September 27, 7:30pm | Timken Hall | Binh Danh: The Enigma of Belonging, co-presented by the CCA Fine Arts Division
- Wednesday, October 18, 7pm | Nave Presentation Space | Rashaad Newsome: Engineers, co-presented by the CCA MFA Design & Animation Programs
- Thursday, November 2, 7pm | Nave Presentation Space | Ana Teresa Fernández: Were You Invited?, co-presented by the CCA Architecture Division