McCurdy Receives UTA CARES Innovation Grant

Dr. Leah McCurdy was awarded a UTA CARES Innovation Grant for her project, “Where Does Art Come From? A Digital OER Text for Open Pedagogy on Global Arts and Culture.” McCurdy, a Senior Lecturer for UTA’s Department of Art and Art History, received the grant to develop a text for an introductory art history course focused on global arts and culture.

The UTA CARES Grant Program, managed by UTA Libraries, helps educators adopt and create open educational resources (OER), which are free course materials that are licensed so others can revise and reuse the content. Currently, there are no existing OER texts are relevant to the “Arts of Africa, Asia, Islam, Oceania, and the Ancient Americas” course. Where Does Art Come From? will fill this gap as a free and open access resource available to students and for adoption by other instructors. McCurdy’s project will save UTA students enrolled in the ART 1317 course approximately $8,770.50 in Fall 2021.

However, the project addresses more than the cost of course materials. Her textbook will facilitate a transition to a “flipped classroom” model where students have the opportunity to teach each other. McCurdy states, “This approach will also call upon the ethics of ‘open pedagogy,’ seeking lasting student contribution to the course. Starting from the text, student instructors will bring their own knowledge, research, and insights to the table. This is another way to demonstrate that higher education is about more than money.”