It Happens Here: MassArt creating next generation of innovators in Longwood
BOSTON - The Longwood section of Boston is most famous for its medical community.
From Boston Children's, Beth Israel and Brigham and Women's hospitals to Harvard Medical School, forty percent of Boston patient visits happen here. But it's also where you will find roughly 29,000 students, at eleven colleges and schools.
Those schools include Massachusetts College of Art and Design. It's where students are making mini replicas of the college on 3D printers for accepted students.
Sierra Maust is a senior at the school supporting her love of everything artistic.
"What I'm really grateful for, is I've had the chance to be an artist and a designer at the same time," she said.
As the country's only public independent college of art and design, the focus is on innovation and creativity. From what they can produce from a printer or create on a canvas.
"Think about all the graduates over 150 years in all the fields and lives changed," said Mary Grant. She's the president and she oversees the mission of creating and pumping out talent for Massachusetts and beyond.
"In Massachusetts, one of the largest economic sectors is the creative and cultural economy and MassArt, as a contributor to that sector, we are producing the next generation of those that will be the innovators in that sector, the leaders in that sector," Grant added.
But the mission goes beyond the college and straight into the community.
"I firmly believe that public higher education is not just in the community they have to be of the community," said Grant.
And that means literally bringing the art and culture to the surrounding communities in Boston at the ground level.
Their "Artward Bound" program has been bringing art into Boston schools for the past 10 years, with the goal of diversifying the field of art by trying to spread the love and make a more colorful and diverse community of artists.
"We have to be a good neighbor. We have to be a good partner, our neighbors need us, our community needs us," said Grant.
The school is celebrating their 150th anniversary this spring.
