About the Program

First launched in 2013-14, Scholars Making Art (formerly Communication through Art) is an interdisciplinary program and collaborative effort between the Georgia Tech Library, the Paper Museum, campus partners and local artists. The program facilitates the creation of artistic projects on campus that nurture creativity and student-faculty interaction in the classroom. The program also seeks to discover new ways to engage with our community through library resources and special collections.

The Scholars Making Art program seeks to enhance the student learning experience by forming a more direct educational collaboration between instructors, staff, librarians, artists and community. The program intends to facilitate interdisciplinary projects in such a way that students gain a more holistic educational experience, while learning to become more effective communicators. The Georgia Tech Library is relaunching the program in a new format in 2021 in order to dovetail with the new Artist in Residence program set to begin in Spring 2021. Classes are invited to apply to work with local artists in particular disciplines.

This program has previously been funded in part by a grant from GT-Fire, a fund sponsored by the Offices of the Provost and Executive Vice President for Research at Georgia Tech. GT-Fire supports potentially transformative innovation and research ideas.

Expansion of this program was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the IMLS Sparks Grant – SP-02-16-0031-16.

Testimonials:

“The breadth of projects that the Communication through Art program can accommodate is remarkable. For classes on media history, we have pursued workshops on stereoscopic and panoramic photography, as well as stop-motion filmmaking. These hands-on “object lessons” offer a window into history for my students, while connecting to contemporary maker culture.”

– Dr. Patrick Ellis, Georgia Tech

“Through integrating the applied and visual arts in a writing-intensive 
literature course, my students and I came to a better understanding of 
how research, problem-solving, drafting, review, and prototyping are 
processes common to a wide range of human endeavors. It also hopefully 
provided students with a more complete picture of the variety of 
intellectual and physical labor that makes
art as well as technology 
possible.”

– Dr. Robin Wharton, Former Assistant Director of Writing and Communication

“I teach about many different types of communication, and visual texts are extremely important to literacy skills and effective communication. In addition, I have found that students at Georgia Tech enjoy the opportunity to expand their repertoire of experiences–creative projects really show their range of abilities and interests. The students were able to compare process-oriented projects that are both materially and digitally oriented; they were able to understand print making from an experiential perspective.”

–Dr. Joy Bracewell, Literature Media & Communication

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