The Creative Minds RAP at Libby creates a supportive, welcoming academic environment for the first-year students in close collaboration with both Housing and Academic Units.  It helps establish a home away from home for all our residents, making sure they feel valued, included, and important through attentive care from faculty and staff. The Creative Minds RAP helps learners succeed in their first-year college experience by closely monitoring their academic progress and providing  proactive intervention when needed; builds strong faculty-student relationships so that residents will feel comfortable not only seeking academic support but also career support in terms of internships, job opportunities, and letters of recommendation; and seeks to inspire a sense of pride and identity for all our students through the years.

Creative Minds RAP unites several arts disciplines and core requirement options in one program offering curriculum where creative minds come alive. Our RAP’s founding was based on a visionary idea truly unique to this campus: an experiential learning program that broke down the walls between the diverse art disciplines and brought them all together in a singular forum to foster dialogue between them and give students easy exposure to a myriad of different arts experiences, especially those who do not choose the arts as their major.

Additionally, the Creative Minds RAP offers Co-Curricular Activities that provide learners with quality exposure to the arts and enrich the learners’ lives with events that celebrate a variety of cultural perspectives and foster academic excellence.


CREATIVITY

World Economic Forum states in their Future of Jobs 2023 report that analytical and creative thinking are the most important skills for workers in 2023, with creative thinking increasing in importance more rapidly than analytical thinking. Creativity is essential for developing strategies to navigate our ever-changing world. Encouraging our students to be inventive, adaptable, and courageous enables them to face inevitable challenges and find new pathways to success in any field or endeavor. Our mission is to cultivate creative minds who become innovative leaders and active and engaged citizens. 

CURRICULUM

We offer courses in dance, drawing, painting, writing, storytelling, cinema studies, digital art, pop culture, and music, as well as a range of popular A&S Gen Ed classes such as anthropology, economics, math, nutrition, and philosophy. ALL of our classes satisfy A&S Gen Ed or major requirements and are taught by dynamic faculty specializing in the first-year experience.

COMMUNITY

We build community through small classes, engaged faculty, and a range of inclusive, co-curricular activities such as our beloved Wellness Fair, monthly diversity celebrations such as Lunar New Year, African drumming, and Drag Queen Bingo, as well as visits to museums, theater performances, and movie nights. Each semester culminates in a Celebration of the Arts, showcasing student work.