Graduate Certificate in Arts Education and Community Engagement

at Centennial College - Story Arts Centre Campus Canada

Centennial College's Fine Arts Studio program is an intensive two-year offering with emphasis on physically creating art through drawing, painting and sculpting.

By getting your hands dirty (literally), you learn the latest skills and techniques, find your own creative voice and be prepared to launch your career as an artist. You spend more time in the studio in two years at Centennial College than other schools offer in four!

In addition to the creative process, this arts diploma program offers one of Ontario's most comprehensive professional practice curriculum's. You'll graduate well-prepared to thrive as a self-employed artist in the professional arts community.

In this Fine Arts Studio program, you:

• Develop advanced technical, conceptual and professional skills required to engage the contemporary arts community.
• Work independently both in and out of the studio environment.
• Receive lots of one-on-one attention.
• Begin to nurture a lifetime of growth as a professional visual artist and storyteller.
• Have a progressive learning experience led by a collaborative team of teachers.
• Be encouraged to develop personal direction and approach to build your own unique voice and style in visual storytelling.
• The Fine Arts Studio program is for you if you are serious about practicing as a professional. As a candidate, you should have meaningful prior experience, either through education, a lifetime personal commitment, and/or the professional equivalent.

Please note: This program requires you to have and use a mobile computing device that meets or exceeds the recommended hardware and software requirements. 

Program Highlights

• The Fine Arts program frequently receives awards from both the Dean and the President for student satisfaction.
• A focus on traditional media, with selective integration of digital processes, gives you the skills necessary to thrive as a professional in the contemporary art world.
• You learn all about the business of being an artist, including getting shows and commissions, applying for grants, marketing yourself and building your career.
• In-school galleries allow for the opportunity to exhibit your work.
• You are exposed to professional exhibition opportunities, where the sales are real. Public exposure is also offered through rental programs.
• Attention is paid to individual creative growth in a studio environment.
• Enthusiastic faculty members are all accomplished professional artists and teach by drawing from their personal experiences.
• The Story Arts Centre is close to the heart of the city and gallery communities, but offers a welcoming non-institutional environment.

Centennial College's Music Industry Arts and Performance (MIAP) program turns your passion for popular, world or indigenous music into an exciting and lasting career in a wide range of fields relating to music.

This unique advanced music diploma program, offered at the School of Communications, Media, Arts and Design, takes three years to complete. During this time, Music Industry Arts and Performance course work helps you to:

• Nurture musicality and creativity
• Raise awareness of a variety of music cultures
• Build knowledge of music-related technologies
• Develop business and entrepreneurial skills

Professional musicians mentor you during private lessons and ensemble rehearsals. This hands-on experience is further enhanced by a six-week field placement in the final semester that provides practical experience in the real world.
You choose a stream of study in the third year of this college music program that allows for specialization. You may join either the music creation and business stream or the music creation and technology stream.

As a graduate of the Music Industry Arts and Performance program, you will be a versatile, culturally aware musician and singer with the technological and business savvy necessary to work in the music industry of today and tomorrow.

Please note: This program requires you to have and use a mobile computing device (i.e. laptop, tablet) that meets or exceeds the recommended hardware requirements.

Program Highlights

• No other music program offers the blend of performance, creative, contextual, business and technology courses found in Centennial College's Music Industry Arts and Performance program.
• You have many opportunities to perform and record, which enhances your readiness.
• You learn how to make money in the music industry of today and tomorrow.
• The program's practical, hands-on approach plays a big role in preparing you for a sustainable, music-related career.
• The advanced diploma that is earned reflects high standards of learning.

Centennial College's Game – Art ?program will allow you to gain the skills to launch a career in the dynamic, ever-expanding and intensely creative interactive game industry. In just 16 consecutive months, the offering will prepare you for a career of imagination, innovative design and storytelling. 

You'll receive intensive hands-on training in Game – Art? and learn to build traditional 3D art assets for games, develop game environments and characters, and express your one-of-a-kind creativity. Developed by industry professionals and School of Communications, Media, Arts and Design instructors with a forward-thinking approach towards the next wave of interactive games, this games diploma program is well-respected in the industry. 

The Digital Visual Effects program is the only two-year college diploma offering of its kind in Ontario. Facilitated at Centennial College's Story Arts Centre, it provides you with the opportunity to learn the industry-standard techniques required to produce the photo-realistic visual effects seen in films that would be impossible to capture with a live-action camera.

In this diploma program's courses, you learn to work with the various aspects of the film-making process and bring them together into a seamless final product, while also developing your skills in industry-standard software. The Digital Visual Effects program focuses on the core skills needed to make you employable in the VFX industry and gives you the ability to explain how visual effects contribute to the entire process of storytelling in motion pictures.

You channel your efforts into demonstrating these concepts and core skills through a unique final project, for which you produce a demo reel suitable for job application in the visual effects field.

Program Highlights

• You learn industry-standard techniques in image processing, editing, lighting, rendering, matte painting, set extension, compositing and post VFX that employers are looking for.
• During the program, you produce a marketable demo and self-promotional package suitable for the VFX industry.
• A field placement in the final semester provides a valuable opportunity to work in the visual effects industry.
• You attend Digital Visual Effects courses at Centennial College's Story Arts Centre, located close to Toronto's downtown core and the major VFX studios.
• During your time in the program, you study and work in labs that are equipped with the latest tools and industry-standard software.
• The program provides a practical, hands-on and entrepreneurial approach that prepares you for sustainable VFX-related careers.
• Opportunities exist to collaborate with students in the digital animation, game design, photography, broadcasting, music, art and theatre programs at the Story Arts Centre. This is a unique opportunity to network, learn and work with industry professionals.

Arts Education and Community Engagement is a two-semester Graduate Certificate program designed to ladder students into careers in arts education and community arts.

Students will learn how to design arts educational programming that is pedagogically sound and that meets the needs of diverse communities.  Students will apply best practices of community arts work and will be trained to facilitate arts-based social justice initiatives. Students will also learn about a variety of careers in arts education and community development through research, mentorship, and field placements.  Graduates of this program will be equipped to manage a professional career in arts and learning, and to incorporate community-engaged arts work into their existing creative practice. 

By modelling innovative pedagogy, this program teaches students to innovate for themselves. By partnering with leading arts organizations, this program facilitates connections and opportunities within the sector. By emphasizing global citizenship, social justice, and cultural competency, this program helps students locate these concerns at the heart of their creative and educational practice.

Program Highlights:-

• Learn to plan and implement arts education and community programming that responds to the needs of a group of learners, in multiple settings, and in collaboration with other artists or organizations.
• Participate in a seven-week field placement where you will directly support the programming of a partnering organization or artist in a supervised community environment.
• Attend classes close to downtown near the creative, cultural heart of Toronto at our Story Arts Centre campus and in the Performing Arts Commons at Daniels Spectrum.
• Opportunities to collaborate with the other students in photography, film and television, music, art, theatre and dance programs at the Story Arts Centre
• Unique opportunity to network, learn and work with industry professionals

The Lifestyle Media program is a one-of-a-kind graduate certificate offering designed to train specialized media professionals who are at the hub of lifestyle media.
In this media program's courses, you'll effectively collaborate with real-world industry partners, clients and audiences to produce quality content for web, social media and traditional media platforms. You'll also gain the skills necessary to work entrepreneurially using contemporary digital media platforms and technologies to market yourself as an independent brand.
Lifestyle communicators are subject-matter experts who are able to take their passion and depth of knowledge to reach behind-the-scenes and share these worlds with audiences that want to both learn and be entertained. Successful lifestyle communicators influence trends and tastes and can become trusted sources of reliable information.

Program Highlights

• The interdisciplinary Lifestyle Media curriculum will include writing, visual communications, social media and entrepreneurship.
• You'll gain the ability to develop sector-specific expertise in areas such as fashion, beauty, food and health.
• There will be a strong focus on social media and web production, including analytics and measurement.
• You'll participate in an industry field placement in an area of your interest.

Centennial College's Sports Journalism program is a unique graduate certificate offering that will prepare you for a career in the ever-changing world of sports media. During your time in this Toronto sports journalism program, you'll learn the best practices for the field in a diverse and gender-inclusive environment with peers just as dedicated to and as passionate about sports.

From covering local athletes and professionals to telling the stories behind the games, players and fans, you'll develop specialized talents in:

• Sports writing (print, TV, radio, online, social media)
• Broadcast (producing, on-air performance, chase and field producing, radio hosting, updates)
• Digital (using editorial publishing tools, blogging, video, audio, Storify, etc.)
• Social media (Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc.)
• News journalism that meets the changing needs of sports coverage (courts, police, etc.)
• Advanced interviewing techniques
• Sports beat journalism
• Print and online imaging
• Hosting in-studio and in the field
• Newspaper and online layout

You'll also have the opportunity to participate in the program's annual trip to baseball spring training, where you'll be able to apply skills and build confidence. Meanwhile, an industry field placement in a sports media organization in Canada or around the world will complement your training.

Game Development & Design is a three-year advanced diploma program that aims to develop expert game designers who are able to create and develop their own titles. The program prepares students to become both technically literate and able to advance the conceptual and cultural potential of games.

The program concentrates on the practical applications of the game production process from the artistic, managerial, and technical sides. Students will be introduced to 2D and 3D design processes, foundations of computer programming, as well as how to communicate effectively with teams of artists and programmers to design, prototype and iterate their own fully playable 2D and 3D games. Students will also learn the professional and personal skills needed for success in the industry.

The Bachelor of Public Relations Management, Honours program at Centennial College's Story Arts Centre is a unique, first-of-its-kind offering in Canada that combines public relations and business studies. In four years, this program will prepare you for an exciting career in public relations (PR), social media and corporate communications.

The Bachelor of Public Relations Management, Honours program, offered by the School of Communications, Media, Arts and Design in collaboration with the School of Business, will balance the theory, principles and application of PR with a solid foundation in business principles through ten core business courses.

During your time in the program, you'll complete real-world projects that will allow you to apply your newly-acquired knowledge. From writing media releases to planning events, you'll engage in practical scenarios that will ground the core classroom concepts of this four-year degree.

To prepare you for a variety of careers, the Bachelor of Public Relations Management courses will include a strong focus on:

• Writing
• Social and digital media
• Research and communications planning
• Strategic communications
• Corporate communications

The Advertising - Creative and Digital Strategy program addresses the high demand for creators in the digital field of advertising and marketing, which is growing faster than all other areas in the advertising industry.

This Advertising Graduate Certificate program takes place at the Story Arts Centre in Toronto and blends Centennial College's experience in digital media with our strengths in business and marketing. The program focuses on helping you create engaging digital experiences built on solid creative strategy. You become immersed in the digital field and learn how to develop breakthrough creative advertising campaigns.

Through your courses, you acquire the necessary skills in creative strategy, writing, developing creative concepts, art direction, collaboration, presentation and entrepreneurialism. During a field placement, which is part of the second semester, Creative and Digital Strategy students take part in team assignments, working in a collaborative environment in the real world.

You’ll also learn new technologies and platforms that keep you informed about recent innovations in the digital creative field.

The program focuses on five key areas:

• Creative strategy, to ensure advertising meets clients' business objectives.
• Digital storytelling, to build on the power of storytelling in developing impactful creative advertising.
• Brand engagement, to create strong connections with consumers.
• Entrepreneurship, to foster key business skills that encourage innovation and risk-taking.
• Emerging platforms, to ensure you are up-to-date on the latest in digital technology impacting the advertising industry.

In this program, you:

• Gain an understanding of the digital creation process from a creative director's point of view.
• Learn how to craft a creative digital strategy that delivers results.
• Develop a strong portfolio and case studies for prospective employers.
• Enhance presentation skills to help sell ideas.
• Understand the impact of technology on creative development.
• Foster digital storytelling skills to bring brands to life online.
• Analyze and solve business and marketing challenges for clients by applying innovative creative and digital techniques.
• Complement in-class education with a field placement that will provide the opportunity to work in the industry and hone your skills.

Please note:- This program requires you to have and use a mobile computing device (i.e. laptop, tablet) that meets or exceeds the recommended hardware requirements. 

Program Highlights

• This Creative and Digital Strategy program gives you the opportunity to turn a degree or diploma into an exciting career in a growing field in the advertising industry.
• You learn how to create digitally-centric creative portfolio pieces using current industry design and writing standards.
• Faculty members have extensive industry experience and can help you connect to the industry by tapping into their personal networks.
• The program is offered at the Story Arts Centre, which is about 15 minutes from most advertising and digital marketing agencies in Toronto.
• At the Story Arts Centre, there are numerous opportunities to collaborate with students in a range of other marketing and communications-focused programs to enhance the learning experience.