In this course, students will learn to help a community recognize, value, and plan to use its own arts to meet local needs and goals. The course provides a compact overview of the Create Local Arts Together (CLAT) model of community engagement. The CLAT process consists of seven flexible steps grounded in ethnographic and appreciative inquiry approaches: meet a community and its arts; specify goals; select communication genre and content; analyze the genre; spark creativity; improve new works and creative systems; integrate and celebrate for continuity. Students will engage with the model through three pedagogical cycles, culminating in applying it to a real-life context.

This course prepares students to be able to:

• Describe and analyze the purposes and interrelationships of the seven Create Local Arts Together (CLAT) steps
• Consult with a community representative as he or she plans to draw on their artistic resources in working toward a better future
• Document and analyze some of the artistic resources of a community, including their plans to engage those arts for a better future

Participants have 3 options when taking Arts for a Better Future. It’s offered as:

• A one-week intensive workshop – a one-week (on campus face-to-face) course – registration is available at www.artsforabetterfuture.org using the “Dallas Details” tab.
• An undergraduate course (WA 2381) – for Dallas International undergraduate course credit. The course includes the one-week intensive along with additional pre-class reading and writing as well as a post-class project and write-up (all submitted online).
• A graduate course (WA5381)– for Dallas International graduate course credit. Like the undergraduate course, this version also includes the one-week intensive along with additional pre-class reading and writing. Students complete a post-class project and write-up, submitting all pre and post-class work online.

Participants in the one-week intensive workshop receive the same training as Dallas International undergraduate and graduate students. At the end of the workshop, all are equipped to help communities draw on their artistic resources to respond to spiritual, social, and physical needs.

With the required post-class project, graduate students immediately apply their new skills in the context of their local communities and write up a description of the experience for their final project. Undergraduate students will write about how they plan to use their newly acquired skills with a community they know.

Take a look at this Google doc, which explains the differences:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nRpwrlMOnLdb3PRsFpvuMZINx-NKNkA6C2F1QWS4bd0/edit?ts=5641eefe&pli=1

ABF Workshop – http://artsforabetterfuture.org

For Undergraduate or Graduate Credit – https://www.diu.edu/admissions/applications. Choose the easy “Gateway” application for those not wanting to take further coursework at Dallas International.

All application materials (including transcripts, etc.) must be at Dallas International for processing by mid-March. Apply now to make sure! If you only intend to take 1-3 courses at Dallas International, you can apply through Gateway admission.

Payment for grad and undergrad versions of the course is due May 1.

For the ABF Workshop: see the costs at the “Dallas Details” tab at the site: http://artsforabetterfuture.org.

For undergraduate and graduate credit hours: The link to tuition and fees is here: https://www.diu.edu/tuition-fees/. You may pay for housing and/or food through the workshop course website at http://artsforabetterfuture.org.

If you are taking the course for credit, you’ll need to arrange on-campus housing with housing_dallas@sil.org.

If you’re taking the workshop version, you can add your request for housing to your registration and we’ll take care of it.

There are scholarships that you may apply for if you are a full-time Dallas International student, but not if this is your only course at Dallas International.

The online coursework starts in early May, ending in early August.

No. The course is not really “online” as all teacher input is face-to-face during the week long intensive. There are no recorded lectures or videos posted online. It’s only “online” in that the assignments are submitted online.

It is very important to plan your travel so that you can be there for the evening intros the day before classes start and all of the following 5 class days, leaving no sooner than 5:00 p.m. the last day.

• We begin with a dinner and “get to know you” session the evening before classes start
• Class runs each morning from 8:45 – 12:30 and each afternoon from 2 – 5:15.

ABF takes students through three cycles of the CLAT process. CLAT consists of 7 steps that guide an arts advocate in their work helping a community draw on their arts to reach their physical, spiritual, and social goals. It’s basically a participatory method of engagement:

Phase One: You will hear a story of arts engagement with a community somewhere in the world. Phase One gives participants a mental framework of the CLAT process.

Phase Two: Instructors facilitate working through a more detailed demonstration of each of the 7 CLAT steps, using the real-life experiences, data, and relationships of a Community Representative. Participants learn basic elements of an artistic form foreign to them, and then create within it. Phase Two results in paradigm shifts in most participants, viscerally understanding the importance and methods of encouraging people to create using locally-grounded art forms.

Phase Three: We divide the participants into smaller groups planning to apply the CLAT process to communities they know. Phase Three allows them to make initial plans to integrate local arts into extensions of the Kingdom of Heaven in contexts they care about.

Schrag, Brian. 2013. Creating Local Arts Together: A Manual to Help Communities Reach their Kingdom Goals. Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library.

[Purchase at https://www.worldofworship.org/ethnodoxology-manual/ or at Dallas International’s Center for Excellence in World Arts—https://www.diu.edu/cewa—if you are in Dallas.]

We attempt to cover all artistic domains equally in this course (visual arts, music, drama, dance, and oral verbal arts like poetry and storytelling) so that students are prepared to facilitate all kinds of artistic expressions, according to the needs of the community.

No background material is required other than Creating Local Arts Together: A Manual to Help Communities Reach their Kingdom Goals (CLAT Manual). Non-credit students are not required to read the CLAT Manual; however, we highly recommend that they do, if at all possible, and that they take notes while reading.

Robin Harris, PhD, has M.A.s in Intercultural Studies and Ethnomusicology and a Ph.D. in Music (Ethnomusicology). She lived for a decade in northern Russia as well as a number of years in Alaska and Canada. She is the Director of the Center for Excellence in World Arts at Dallas International, the President of the Global Ethnodoxology Network (GEN), and serves as an Arts Consultant with SIL International.

Laura Roberts has an MA in World Arts from Dallas Int’l and is studying in the PhD program now. She served in India for five years as a Creative Arts Coordinator and community development worker. She has experience studying Hindustani vocal music and leading song writing and henna storying workshops in India. She is also the GEN Global Coordinator for ABF. https://www.diu.edu/faculty/laura-roberts/

Dates and deadlines for UK 2024 (Spring) January 11 – May 2, 2024

• Acceptance to this course requires Instructor’s Permission. Please contact Suzette Mack at ath_assistant@diu.edu to schedule a meeting time before starting the application process.
• We strongly suggest you apply as soon as possible, especially if you are an international student: https://www.diu.edu/admissions/applications. Applications will not be accepted after November 3, 2023.
• As a blended course, the first online section begins January 11, 2024, with readings and written assignments submitted to the course website in phases.
• The on-campus intensive will be held at All Nations Christian College, Easneye, Ware, Hertfordshire SG12 8LX from March 18 — 25, 2024.
• The final section of the course involves submitting a final project due online by the last day of class.

For further questions, please contact us at ath@diu.edu or ath_assistant@diu.edu.

Dates and deadlines for DALLAS 2024 (May-Extended Term) May 13 – August 9, 2024

• Acceptance to this course requires Instructor’s Permission. Please contact Suzette Mack at ath_assistant@diu.edu to schedule a meeting time before starting the application process.
• We strongly suggest you apply as soon as possible, especially if you are an international student. Applications will not be accepted after February 15: https://www.diu.edu/admissions/applications.
• As a blended course, the first online section begins on May 13, 2024, with readings and written assignments submitted on the course website.
• The on-campus intensive will be held at Dallas International University, 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd. Dallas, TX 75236, July 8-19, 2024.
• The final section of the course involves submitting a final project due online by the last day of class.

For more detailed information, please write to ath@diu.edu or ath_assistant@diu.edu.

UK Lead Professor: Mary Beth Saurman has a BS in Music Therapy and an MA in Intercultural Studies/Ethnomusicology.  Mary earned her PhD at University of Bern in Bern, Switzerland with a focus of ethnomusicology and arts combined in multilingual education. Mary Beth has 13 years experience working as a Creative Arts Therapist and Music Therapist in clinical settings, including: mental health care, geriatric care, and special needs.  Her training and expertise focus on Music Therapy and Dance/Movement Therapy. In addition she has worked in the other areas of Creative Arts as therapy. Mary Beth has applied these skills sets and her further training in Ethnomusicology in Asia with SIL International for the last 22 years as an advocate for the music and arts of ethnic minority groups. In Thailand, she works as an Ethnomusicologist for Mahidol University in Bangkok.  Mary Beth also teaches at Payap University in Chieng Mai, training nationals from Asia and Eurasia as catalysts for the creation of culturally relevant arts.  She work in the areas of using Arts in Trauma Healing, Community Development, Scripture Engagement, Sustainability, Literacy, Multilingual Education, Media, Bible Storying, and more.

May term Lead Professor: Beth Argot serves with A.C.T. International (Artists in Christian Testimony) and is the Arts & Trauma Healing Program Coordinator, PhD Coordinator, and Associate Director of the Center for Excellence in World Arts at Dallas International University. She received her doctorate in Worship Studies from the Robert Webber Institute for Worship Studies, with focus on spiritual formation, worship, and the arts. She was the founding chair of the Worship Arts and Media program at Life Pacific University in San Dimas, CA where she trained worship artists for multi-cultural and cross-cultural ministry. She also conducted foundational research in spiritual formation of the Worship Artist and established an integrative spiritual formation plan within the program. She continues her research at DIU, her current research focus on the parallels of Arts & Trauma Healing practices and historical worship practices.

In addition to teaching the DIU Arts and Trauma Healing course, Beth leads global webinars workshops, and healing groups, assisting missionaries and others in use of the arts for healing from trauma and other heart wounds.

This course teaches a holistic, interactive approach to engaging Scripture and local arts in the healing process for people who suffer from the mental, emotional, and spiritual effects of trauma. It combines biblical truths with basic mental health principles expressed in ways applicable to many contexts. Students learn to address the effects of damaged beliefs and emotions resulting from trauma in their own lives and in the lives of others. Through expressive arts exercises and participatory learning methods, students personally process the material and develop facilitation skills based on arts and trauma healing theory and practice. Students will understand and be able to articulate and demonstrate the role, the value, and the effectiveness, and the practice of using contextualized expressive arts in trauma healing.

This course is offered in collaboration with American Bible Society’s Trauma Healing Institute (THI) and the Trauma Healing Alliance. In addition to earning Dallas International course credit, students who demonstrate readiness during the course will be certified by THI as “Apprentice Facilitators” in trauma healing.

This course prepares students to be able to:

• Apply knowledge of the scope of trauma in the world and its impact on individuals and communities to their own personal and/or work experience.
• Create basic, culturally appropriate approaches for trauma healing.
• Create appropriate materials and facilitation approaches for basic trauma care in a healing group.
• Create relevant research designs and contextualized trauma healing approached for empowering communities in discovering effective uses of their own art forms in the trauma healing process.

Students desiring to take this course need to have completed a Bachelor’s degree with a GPA of 2.75 or higher. Once you have been accepted to Dallas International University, the school’s Arts and Trauma Healing Liaison will contact you to arrange for an interview and describe the recommendation process. Your interview responses will be reviewed, along with two recommendations, then you will be informed as to whether or not you have achieved Instructor’s Permission to take the course.

The link to tuition and fees is here: https://www.diu.edu/admissions/tuition-and-fees-graduate

If you will be paying your tuition and fees with non-US currency, please contact DIU’s Student Accounts Specialist at Student-Finances@diu.edu for payment instructions.

All applicants may apply for financial aid, even if this is your only course at Dallas International University.

• We begin with an introductory session on the Sunday afternoon or evening before classes begin.
• Then Monday through Friday for the next two weeks we meet in class for 3 to 4 hours each morning. Several evening sessions are required as well. Students should plan on spending 3-4 hours each day to complete daily assignments. The residential part of the course is truly an intensive time of learning and study!

• It is very important to plan your travel so that you arrive for the Sunday introductory session (by 2PM in Dallas; between 4PM and 6PM in the UK).
• Your departure should be scheduled as late as possible the last day of the residential classes. Detailed class schedules will be available along with the syllabus approximately one month before class starts for those students who have registered.

Dallas: Prices and other information about housing on our Dallas International campus can be found here: https://www.diu.edu/student-life/housing and to reserve housing you can write to housing_dallas@sil.org. You are expected to arrange for your own housing.

UK: Please see the next question question concerning arrangements for taking the course in the UK.

For those taking the course at All Nations in the UK, use your registration number provided by Dallas International University to complete your registration. Go to this link then click on the blue button on the top of that page for “Residential Application” to enable you to fill in the form and make your payment online. If you do not need lodging or food, please register anyway then contact Katharine Shaw at k.shaw@allnations.ac.uk, letting her know that you will not be staying or eating meals at All Nations.

Unless you are a fast worker, graduate level courses generally require approximately 2-3 times the amount of homework in relation to instructional time (which is 40 hours), so approximately 150 hours (plus or minus 20 hrs) spread over two months. This is only an average amount of work… some students work more slowly or more quickly.

Final list of textbooks will go out to registrants in December, but here is the tentative list:

Advance purchase (for use in reading during January (UK) and May (Dallas))

• Langberg, Diane. 2015. Suffering and the Heart of God: How Trauma Destroys and Christ Restores. Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press.
• Other reading material will be provided through the online portal once the course has begun.

We attempt to cover all artistic domains equally in this course (visual arts, music, drama, dance, and oral verbal arts like poetry and storytelling) so that students are prepared to facilitate all kinds of artistic expressions, according to the needs of the traumatized person or community.

You should begin the course reading as soon as you’re able (and have the syllabus). Background material on the Trauma Healing Institute (THI) site http://thi.americanbible.org would provide some information as well. Dr. Harriet Hill, who directs THI, helped to develop this course. You can also look at the film trailer for a new documentary done on THI: www.americanbible.org/hope-rising