MORGANTOWN — The West Virginia University College of Creative Arts will bring back its Visual Arts Summer Academies after involuntarily losing the ability to conduct them last year as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and its accompanying restrictions.
Two academies are set to be held this month. The first is a day camp for grades K-7, which ran July 12-16. The second is the college’s residential camp for grades 8-12, and runs July 18-22.
The day camp costs $395 to attend for four days, with lunch and art supplies provided.
The residential camp costs $625, including room and board, all meals, art supplies and bed linens.
WVU College of Creative Arts Associate Professor and Coordinator of Art Education Terese Giobbia said this will be the fifth year she has managed a Visual Arts Academy for high school students.
“It’s been a great opportunity for them to work with professors in their potentially desired career pathways, especially for those students who are in senior year and are thinking about maybe pursuing an art career,” she said.
She said the program also gives students the chance to experience life on campus.
Traditionally, Giobbia has only operated one academy for high school students. But because the academy was not held last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a heightened interest in having an academy for students in grades K-7, she said.
That interest was met with WVU’s offer to host a day camp for younger students, while high school students were still able to participate in the residential camp the university has offered to high school students in the past.
Giobbia provided a rundown of how the residential camp designated for older students should operate, if everything goes according to plan.
Students will stay in Lincoln Hall. Guardians will leave students there on Sunday with their luggage. Then, students will receive a tour of the building.
On Monday after breakfast, campers will venture over to the Creative Art Center to participate in workshops from 9 a.m.–11:30 a.m. Students were given the opportunity to select their area of focus, with choices including graphic design, sculpture, printmaking, painting and drawing. Students are given an entire schedule based on their interests.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, students will continue to participate in workshops as they work to gradually prepare full-blown art projects that Giobbia hopes they will be able to put in their portfolios once their time at the academy is over.
Students will also participate in enrichment activities during the week to allow students to socialize and experience the fun side of college life. For instance, students will visit the Mountainlair on Monday to go bowling and grab lunch.
According to Giobbia, the majority of the students who join the art education program she coordinates are familiar faces.
“Probably one-third of the students that are in my program actually have done this camp,” she said.
Giobbia said the program attracts many out-of-state students, some from states as close as Pennsylvania and as far away as Colorado.
“It’s been very good for enrollment into our school,” she stated.
Giobbia said she can speak for everyone in the College of Creative Arts in saying that the staff was very excited to be able to bring the Visual Arts Summer Academy back.
It seemed as though students were excited, too, since this year’s camp is completely full. Giobbia said that people who signed up for last year’s academy came back this year and asked if the school intended to run the program.
Giobbia worked out a plan to bring the program back to WVU beginning in March. She submitted a proposal and waited to hear back from administration. In May, she got an email telling her that her revised program was good to go.
“Honestly, it was full by mid-May. People just signed up for it right away,” she said.
Giobbia said all of the staff and faculty running the program are fully vaccinated for the safety of themselves and their students.
“Everybody felt this was an awesome opportunity for us to have students back on campus before the students come back to campus in the fall,” she said.
“We were all thrilled to have our students be face-to-face with us again.”
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