What is the Handbook?

The Online Handbook of Teaching with the Arts is a resource guide designed to help UC Berkeley faculty and graduate student instructors connect their courses with the arts on campus and throughout the Bay Area. This project is sponsored by the Consortium for the Arts at UC Berkeley, which promotes the integration of the arts into general education curriculum. 

What is included in the Handbook?

The Handbook encompasses a number of visual and performing arts organizations, including: museums, performing arts venues, dance and theater companies, cultural institutes, musical ensembles, and venues for opera and vocal performance. Categorized by artistic discipline, it provides the information necessary to determine which type of arts organization might best suit the parameters of a particular course. The Handbook provides UC Berkeley faculty with a concise but thorough overview of Bay Area arts institutions and organizations, and highlights free and low-cost resources that these organizations make available, such as guided tours, open rehearsals, artists' talks, and special workshops.

At this time, the Handbooks covers Bay Area arts organizations in San Francisco and the East Bay, but does not include the South Bay, North Bay, or Peninsula (except for Stanford University facilities).

How can I use the Handbook in my course?

Sometimes faculty members have the impression that it is “too difficult” or “too much extra work” to arrange arts-enriched activities. However, they are usually surprised to find that once they contact an arts organization, the process of setting up a visit, tour, lecture, etc. is both simple and inexpensive (or free). Arts organizations in the Bay Area are committed to education, outreach, and youth/student involvement, and often wish they could find more ways to bring the arts into schools and universities. Merely emailing the contact person at an institution or organization listed in the Handbook and asking for an individualized, tailored program can result in one of the most memorable experiences of the semester for both students and teachers.

For example, a GSI teaching Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet might wonder how to make the play come alive for her students in a new way.  By perusing the Handbook’s “Theater” section, she could find a number of ideas that might spark her students’ appreciation: inviting local actors from The Shotgun Players to act out the balcony scene in her classroom; or taking her students to a “Hybrid Shakespeare” performance at Intersection for the Arts, where Romeo and Juliet are re-imagined as teenagers in West Oakland; or bringing her class to a pre-performance lecture at Zellerbach Hall, where the Bolshoi Ballet is dancing Poklitaru’s recent version of Romeo and Juliet.  

The Handbook lists contact information, the focus or nature of arts organization, and any specific forms of educational programs the organization has developed.  In addition, the Handbook notes the location of museums, theaters, etc. relative to public transportation, and gives information about general group programs or discounts, if the organization does not offer educational activities specifically. All of the necessary information for an arts organization is on the same page, so it would be very simple for the GSI teaching Shakespeare to immediately email or call the contact person listed, and arrange a performance, group ticket sale, or reservation for seats at the lecture. She would already know from the Handbook whether discounts, grants, or outreach programs with funding were available, so she could request reduced admission fees or a free backstage tour when she called or emailed the contact person.

Who should I contact if I find incorrect information in the Handbook, or wish to recommend an addition?

Please contact the Consortium for the Arts at ucb_arts(at)berkeley.edu or (510) 642-7784.  We welcome your corrections and suggestions.

Credits:

The Handbook was created and developed by Dr. Selby Schwartz, Dept of Comparative Literature, UC Berkeley, with the invaluable support of the following people and organizations: Michele Rabkin and Shalene Valenzuela of the Consortium for the Arts; and Dr. Davy Walter of the IHUM program at Stanford University. This project would not have been possible without the helpful resources of the San Francisco Arts Monthly and the Department of Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley.

photo credits
Main page: Alonzo King's Lines Ballet, courtesy of Thomas Ammerpohl and the Wolfsburg Movimentos Festival
This page: Stage image by Benjamin Wardell; Marcus Shelby, by Scott Chernis, courtesy of Intersection of the Arts

website design: Shalene Valenzuela