[Testing] Podcast - EP 67: Building community and conversation through the arts

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Rick Davis sitting in the WGMU studio. Rick is smiling and wears a bright yellow Mason baseball cap.

George Mason has a long history of supporting the arts on campus and in the community. With seven academic programs, seven galleries, six community arts programs, two major venues, and the digital venue Mason Arts Amplified, Mason Arts continues to create a thriving artistic community right here in Northern Virginia.

On this episode of Access to Excellence, President Gregory Washington is joined by Rick Davis, dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts at George Mason and the executive director of the Hylton Performing Arts Center. An accomplished director, author, professor, and George Mason baseball cap collector, Davis and President Washington discuss the history of the arts at George Mason and the critical role the arts play in creating and maintaining community. 

 

In a good arts course, you learn that iterative process. You learn that critical thinking process. You learn about sort of testing hypotheses, but those hypotheses might be language or music or images. And what does this image say to you? And, and how can you make it better? How can you understand it differently? And that circular thought process really is the essence of artistic creation, which is why I think students, once they experience it, they love it. — Rick Davis