Summary Project

Former students complete practicum work with alumna Lina Cholewinski (MFA '18), right, at Urban Artworks. Lina wrote her Summary Project, "The Importance of Reinvesting in Youth through Public Art" based on her experience working for Urban Artworks.

The final quarter of the program is devoted to the development and presentation of your Summary Project. It integrates your academic, practicum, and professional experience into one applied research project that consists of a paper, a presentation, and a project. With the guidance of faculty, the focus of the quarter is on inquiry or asking questions, citation or honoring past literature, and doing the work or practicing methods relevant to your research projects, analyzing data, and working through ideas and revision.  

The 6-credit Summary Project experience includes ARTL 5951 – Graduate Management Practicum (3 credits) and ARTL 5990 – Summary Project (3 Credits). In addition to the weekly class, you are expected to spend your practicum time (120-150 hours) on the creation of your Summary Project throughout the quarter.  

Select Past Summary Project titles include the following:  

• Sharpest Knives: An Independently Produced Podcast about Arts Access; Artist Support; and Social, Racial, and Gender Equity 
• Moving Toward Justice: A Guide to Creating Effective Social Justice Dance Programming and Curricular Integration 
• Age is a Number, Not a Grade: Five Strategies for Untangling Ageism in the Arts Workplace 
• Death by Dinner: Art Consumption Explored through a Methodology of Food Performance 
• Shattering the Glass Curtain: Crafting Effective Mentoring Networks for the Creative and Professional Advancement of Women in the Theatre 
• Ritualizing Residency: How Artist Residencies Sustain Practice and Experimentation 
• Making Art in the Anthropocene: Artistic Citizenship for a Future Worth Living 
• Repertoires of Resistance: Co-Creation in a Radically Inclusive Youth (Arts) Space 

Your Summary Projects is a representation of what could be as you continue to pursue arts leadership through an intersectional lens towards equity, empathy, and value. At the end of the quarter, to confer your MFA in Arts Leadership, you will present your Summary Projects to colleagues, faculty, alumni, and invited family and friends through a curated event produced by the Arts Leadership Department.

For access to select Summary Project abstracts from alumni, contact us at mfa_artsleadership@seattleu.edu.