The Creative Connections program provides a school year long teaching artist internship to UCI arts majors who receive training to develop and implement curriculum-based arts projects in collaboration with an Orange County area educator to serve K12 students.

Creative Connections has two major goals:

1. To provide CTSA Teaching Artist Interns practical teaching experience in the classroom within their discipline.
2. To support K-12 Orange County students and educators by helping fill gaps in arts education.

This program not only helps fill the arts gap for Orange County area schools and school districts that may offer little or no arts education programs, but also develops our CTSA students into engaged citizen artists and arts educators after completing their degrees. Participation in the Creative Connections program is free for schools and school districts, with priority given to educators teaching at schools with a portion of the student population benefiting from Title 1 of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Projects are developed in the fields of art, dance, drama and music and developed collaboratively between the Creative Connections Teaching Artist Interns and Classroom Educators. Projects provide sustained access to arts education and span an entire school-year. 

My kids LOVE the teaching artists and have learned so much from them. I have learned so much from them.
Veronica Kelii, Teacher, Anaheim Union High School District

It has been fantastic working with the Creative Connections program, it has provided learning opportunities to our students that just would not have been possible otherwise.
Jason Grenier, Teacher, Irvine Unified School District

Until this internship I was not presented with opportunities outside of the UCI community to contribute to a better society. This is a necessary and fulfilling experience that I recommend to anyone at CTSA.
Kathleen Deck, UCI Art Major, Class of 2016