Studio CreaTec

Mission Statement

Studio Createc is focused on exploring and applying the intersection of the creative arts, technology, entrepreneurship, and learning to client projects and individual research. We conduct and apply trans-disciplinary, collaborative research and creative activity to develop enhanced solutions for real-world problems.

Studio Createc will prepare the next generation of artists, designers, entrepreneurs, and technology practitioners for the future. The outcomes promote students’ critical and creative thinking skills to improve learning, performance and developing traits of entrepreneurship. This program focuses on students studying art certification, gaming for education and entertainment, design communication, animation and emerging media.

Studio Createc will provide a level of collaboration that allows students to successfully research new forms of technology in a studio-based learning environment. This studio and collaborative system is an important structure that will help students discover how to use technology to make a viable impact on the creative arena they choose. The creative arts, technology, and entrepreneurship studies will provide statewide and national leadership in research by blending arts and technology, building collaborations with educators, business, non profit organizations, and interested experts.

The idea is to take learning beyond the classroom to prepare students for the 21st century workplace. The studio will contribute significantly to new knowledge, the participant’s intellectual development and will enhance creative and critical thinking that will have an economic and cultural impact on north Texas and its communities. This new curriculum and studio has been designed for the creative and inquisitive mind.

Our Goals

Learn

  • Positively impact student retention (at all levels PK-16), enhance creativity, sharpen critical thinking skills, and improve academic performance through the creation and dissemination of cutting edge materials and tools.
  • Fostering critical thinking and problem solving among future teachers to increase their engagement in the education system development process.

Engage

  • Spark collaboration among faculty, artist, educators, business leaders, community, and students in a creative studio/laboratory environment that inspires discovery/acquisition of new knowledge concerning art, technology, and learning.

Discover

  • Nurture interdisciplinary collaboration and research, serve as an accelerator for exploration of new knowledge using art and technology, and enable the creation of both virtual, interactive, and material based artistic practice to be shared within museums, schools, businesses, and the general public.

Studio CreaTec Challenge

The Studio Createc Challenge, initiated by The Art and Art History Department, is a idea competition established in order to encourage and develop creativity, ideation, and collaboration among the various departments and colleges at UTA. As our cultural, technological and business environments are more interconnected than ever, The Studio Createc Challenge calls for innovative, interdisciplinary student teams to create and develop ventures responding to this new landscape. Over $10,000 in cash prizes and start-up resources will be provided to teams with viable solutions and sustainable ideas that successfully address the intersection of culture, business, and technology today.

Read More About the Challenge

PREVIOUS STUDIO CREATEC PROJECTS

In summer 2013, Kyle Smith, director of the UTA Center for Community Service Learning, approached Senior Lecturer and Cinematic Arts Area Coordinator Mark Clive about a $25,000 grant opportunity from the Ford Motor Company Fund. The Ford College Community Challenge was designed to empower student-led projects at higher education organizations to catalyze community-building projects that address pressing local needs around the theme “Building Sustainable Communities.”

Students of the Art+Art History Film and Visual Communication Design program were instrumental in securing the grant with the creation of a short film that highlighted the efforts of the free medical clinic at Mission Arlington and its vital role in the community.

The Studio Createc team is currently writing a grant to be funded by the National Education Association (NEA) for the production of a documentary film that will seek to capture the challenging dynamics of resettlement. The film aims to examine the effects on a refugee’s social position while exploring resettlement policies and those who implement them. Co-ethnics in the broader diaspora who have resettled in different countries—as well as the worldviews they share with those left behind—are also set to play a critical role in the film.

The Co-PI and SME on this project will be Dr. Faith Nibbs, UTA alumnus, Research Assistant Professor, and Director of the Forced Migration Integration Project in the Department of Anthropology at Southern Methodist University. Supporting this project will be Patty Newton, film lecturer (producer), and 2 to 5 graduate and undergraduate students from the Cinematic Arts program.

This spring, the UTA School of Social Work approached Studio CreaTec for collaboration with their project known as Connections, a school-based holistic teen pregnancy and STD-reduction intervention program targeted at academically at-risk youths, ages 16 to 19. Connections builds on findings from current researchers and evaluators, funded by the Office of Adolescent Health and the Office Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention, which indicate relationship building is an essential component to successful pregnancy-prevention strategies. Based on a Positive Youth Development framework, the premise behind the Connections intervention is the concept that youths are better equipped to make key decisions when they are able to establish positive connections with caring individuals.

A+AH students will produce 5 short films, promotional materials (including a promo poster and post message email blast), an iPad app for use in conferences, and a Web page for post-conference following.

The Studio CreaTec team was approached in early 2014 about collaboration between UTA's Division for Enterprise Development and Art+Art History Department, and Safety Solutions International occupational health and safety training company.

UTA received a $1.3 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to produce an oral history documentary for the U.S. mining industry, focusing on fire hazards in underground operations, as well as general hazard recognition and accident investigation issues. The film’s title is derived from the Wilberg coal mine in Emery County, Utah, site of a tragic fire that claimed 27 lives in 1984. The grant will also be used to develop accompanying multi-media components and foster leadership skills among first-line supervisors over the next three years. The production team for this film includes both graduate and undergraduate students, giving them valuable experience in the production of a high-level documentary film. As the project approaches the final quarter of first-year funding, 3 undergraduate and 2 graduate students are set to create animation and graphic design for the film and its promotional materials. The project’s tentative completion date is set for fall 2016.

The UTA School of Social Work is once more counting on the Studio CreaTec team to create short films and informational graphics for Play it Safe, a program that prepares trainers for presenting sensitive information about sexual abuse. The school has approached the Meadows Foundation to fund an existing program. This project will include promotional materials and a Web site with testing capabilities. A projected startup is slated for fall 2016.

The Studio CreaTec team collaborated with the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering (DMAE) from 2011-2013 on the development of a Web site application, funded by a grant estimated at $128,000. The project was completed in conjunction with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an independent agency of the United States government that oversees reactor safety and security, reactor licensing and renewal, radioactive material safety, security and licensing, and spent-fuel management (including storage, security, recycling and disposal). The Web application aimed to educate various entities, both national and international, about nuclear energy and regulation.

The Osage Tribal Nation is an indigenous tribal populace residing primarily in northeast Oklahoma with multiple communities established throughout the United States. The Osage Tribal Nation's Social Services Agency requested a DVD that would educate Osage families throughout the country about the benefits of adopting and offering foster care to Osage children.

The project was part of the “Mountains and Plains Child Welfare Implementation Project,” funded with a 9 million dollar national grant through the UTA School of Social Work.

Another proposed project from the UTA School of Social Work is an AIDS prevention initiative for which students will provide 18 hours of narrative film on the subject, including graphics and animation, as well as promotional materials and a Web site to a worldwide audience. This grant is from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Health Services Administration (SAMSA), and is projected to begin in 2016.