Academic Catalog 2022-23

Performing Arts and Social Change (Minor)

The minor in Performing Arts and Social Change employs the restorative practices of theater to foster community-engaged learning and to affect social change. Students practice creativity, critical reflection, and empathy that extends well beyond the theater and into the wider community.

The program features a distinctive curricular partnership with The Marin Shakespeare Company (MSC). Dominican is one of the few universities in the nation to house a professional theater company on campus, and each year, Marin Shakespeare mounts three main-stage productions in the Forest Meadows Amphitheater. Under the guidance of artistic director Robert Currier and managing director Lesley Currier, the company also provides free and low-cost educational programming to underserved populations in the local community. Among these are the incarcerated. Shakespeare for Social Justice is an arts-in-corrections program that combines drama therapy with Shakespearean performance in Northern California penal institutions, including San Quentin State Prison.

Under the guidance and mentorship of literary scholars, social justice advocates, artists, and technicians in professional theater, students wed theory to practice in specialized coursework. The minor culminates in a capstone experience featuring a professional internship with MSC or another approved community partner. The internship is enhanced by a faculty-led community of practice where students critically reflect on their experiences and develop a final project suited to their professional and academic goals. Signature work could be scholarly, creative, digital, or performance-based with the option of joining MSC’s Acting and Technical Summer Training Program, which offers ensemble casting in at least one mainstage production and Equity Membership Candidate (EMC) points.

Program Learning Outcomes

Students will:

  1. Reflect critically on their identity as a person, a professional, and a community member.
  2. Analyze the relationship between agency and structures that produce inequity in diverse communities.
  3. Act creatively and collaboratively to learn within diverse community contexts.
  4. Co-create artistic and restorative practices through performance that promote equity and enhance well-being.

Required Courses:

CASC 3400Theory and Practice for Community Action and Social Change

4.00 units

ENGL 3016Shakespeare for Social Justice

4.00 units

Select four units from the following:

ART 3010Community Engaged Art:Principles & Prac.

3.00 units

ENGL 2305/ENGL 3412Introduction to Creative Writing

4.00 units

ENGL 3037Queer Anglophone Literature and Film

4.00 units

ENGL 3300/ENGL 2300Film Studies

2.00 units

ENGL 3304/ENGL 2304Drama Studies

2.00 units

ENGL 3308Writing the Graphic Novel

2.00 units

ENGL 3330Writing Popular Genres

4.00 units

ENGL 3402Drama Writing

4.00 units

ENGL 3403/ENGL 3431Fiction Writing

4.00 units

ENGL 3405Poetry Writing

4.00 units

ENGL 3409Autobiographical and Biographical Writing

4.00 units

ENGL 3410Creative Nonfiction Writing

4.00 units

ENGL 3412/ENGL 2305Advanced Creative Writing

4.00 units

ENGL 3413Spoken Word

4.00 units

ENGL 3414Acting and Stagecraft

4.00 units

ENGL 3440Advanced Writing Seminar

4.00 units

ENGL 3650STA: Creative Arts at the Finca

4.00 units

ENGL 3702Anatomy Theater

4.00 units

HONO 3202Just Learning: Books Not Bars

4.00 units

HIST 1001The Making of Today: Contemporary World History

4.00 units

PHIL 3103/HONO 3503Ethics, Leadership and Meaning

4.00 units

PHIL 3110/PHIL 1110Environmental Ethics

4.00 units

PHIL 3121Education for Democracy

4.00 units

PHIL 3124Othering and Belonging

4.00 units

PHIL 3220/POL 3220Gender: Ethics & Politics

4.00 units

PHIL 3520Self, Community and Ethical Action

4.00 units

POL 3220/PHIL 3220Gender: Ethics & Politics

4.00 units

PSY 1100Introduction to Psychology

4.00 units

RLGN 3003Art and the Sacred

4.00 units

RLGN 3132Women, Religion and Sexuality

4.00 units

RLGN 3186Faith-based Social Teachings

4.00 units

Capstone

CASC 4996Community-Engaged Internship

1.00 unit

CASC 4905Community of Practice and Signature Work

2.00 units

Total Credit Hours: 16