The Stanford Institute for Creativity & the Arts (SiCa) is the institutional arm of the Arts Initiative. Created in 2006 with seed funding from the Office of the President, SiCa is the nerve center for arts on campus. SiCa serves as a nexus for new arts partnerships across and beyond campus, provides seed funding for new campus arts ventures, and works to infuse art into student life at the curricular, extra-curricular and residential levels. SiCa provides an information clearing house for Stanford arts programming and funding opportunities.

SiCa is organized around three centers that serve as the hub for a variety of innovative arts activities at Stanford: the Center for Humanities and the Arts (CHA); the Center for Arts, Science, and Technology (CAST); and the Center for Global Arts (CGA). These centers draw on Stanford’s strengths in media and technology; its commitment to diversifying the curriculum; and its historic support for departments engaged in scholarly study of the arts and humanities. Each center engages in events and programming; granting for curricular, event and faculty professional development activity; and partnerships with local, regional and national arts organizations.

SiCa brings together faculty and students from all parts of the University, encouraging new teaching, research and creative collaborations across disciplines. Ongoing activities include:

Strategic Partnerships

SiCa partners with regional and national arts organizations to produce innovative programming and pedagogical opportunities at Stanford and beyond. Our first partnerships, with Public Theatre of New York and San Francisco Opera have resulted in artist campus residencies, workshops, performances, opera simulcasts, and student internships. New external partnerships are in development with San Francisco Exploratorium and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Campus Arts Programming

SiCa partners with Stanford departments and organizations such as Stanford Lively Arts, Stanford Humanities Center, Pan-Asian Music Festival, and arts departments for new and diverse programs across Stanford campus.

Arts in Student Life

SiCa seeks to infuse the arts into student life at all levels: curricular, extra-curricular and residential. Through Off the Farm and Farm Aid grants, SiCa funds arts opportunities in and out of the classroom. A dedicated staff member serves as liaison to over one hundred student arts groups on campus. SiCa supports student arts groups and events, and arts facilities in residence halls. SiCa is currently supporting the cost of construction of a Ceramics Studio in the Elliot Program Center. SiCa funds student arts grants and internships in partnership with VPUE, SOCA, IDA, and Kimball Residence Hall.

SiCa Grant Opportunties

SiCa provides seed funding for three types of projects: campus arts programming, innovative teaching opportunities, and faculty professional development and research. Arts Events and Programming Grants, first introduced in the spring of 2007, provide departments, faculty, students and staff with expanded opportunities to create special arts events on campus. SiCa Curricular Innovation Grants provide non-arts faculty the opportunity to integrate arts components into their courses, and enable arts faculty to experiment with new pedagogies and explore new technologies.

Graduate Degree Programs

SiCa is exploring two new graduate degree programs, both tied to the larger mission of arts education across campus. The first is a new interdisciplinary MFA program, the second an innovative PhD program. Both will work in conjunction with current graduate programs in the individual arts departments. These proposed degree programs bring together theory and practice through long-term team projects and new forms of apprentice-based learning, and will complement graduate degree programs in the new Plattner Design Institute, the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, and the Drama Department, which also emphasize innovative hands-on approaches to learning. Over time, these programs will distinguish Stanford as a unique center for innovative art education.