About Us
What is LRAP?
The Libby Residential Academic Program (LRAP or Libby RAP) offers an interdisciplinary curriculum in the arts, including visual arts, theatre and dance, music, and film studies for first-year students and sophomores in the College of Arts & Sciences. The program’s curriculum and co-curricular activities (e.g., lectures, films, exhibitions, and performances) are intended to enhance students’ appreciation of and direct experience in all of the arts.
Limited to approximately 250 students during 2008-09, Libby’s small seminar and studio courses (with 15-25 students per class) create a close intellectual and artistic community. Participants generally take 3-6 credit hours in the hall each semester. Most courses fulfill arts and sciences core requirements, while others are prerequisites for the major in the academic departments of art and art history, theatre and dance, and film studies. We also offer courses in other disciplines such as economics and nutrition. All courses may be taken for elective credit.
The curriculum offers students an ideal starting point for a major in any of these departments, although students from any major in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities may participate in the program. Classes meet in Libby Hall and are taught by faculty with demonstrated excellence in teaching. The program cost was $765 for the 2007-08 academic year.
Who are we?
Director Deborah J. Haynes is also Professor of Art and Art History and former Chair of that department from 1998-2002. In 2003 at the request of the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, she began to develop the Libby RAP. Before coming to CU-Boulder, she was Associate Professor of Art and Director of Women’s Studies at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. She completed the Master of Fine Arts degree in studio arts at the University of Oregon in 1977; the Master of Theological Studies degree at Harvard Divinity School in 1986; and a Ph.D. in The Study of Religion and Fine Arts at Harvard University in 1991. Both an artist and a writer, her books include Bakhtin and the Visual Arts (1995), The Vocation of the Artist (1997), and Art Lessons: Meditations on the Creative Life (2003). She regularly teaches courses on art and religion in the Libby RAP, as well as graduate courses in the art department.
Associate Director Willard Uncapher teaches courses in the Libby RAP in writing, the history of communication, and processes of globalization. His degrees include the Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Texas at Austin in 2000, a Master of Arts degree from University of Pennsylvania in communication and new media. His undergraduate degree is from Columbia University in the cultures and philosophies of Asia. Dr. Uncapher's present research interests include globalization and media history, especially the relationship of new media and society.
Program Assistant Josephine Kapatayes has been at CU-Boulder for sixteen years and greatly enjoys working with students from both the United States and other countries.