About a year ago, The University of Tulsa acquired 101 Archer, previously known as Arts & Humanities Hardesty Arts – and affectionately known as AHHA. Nestled within the Tulsa Arts District and bordering Greenwood, the site represents an opportunity for TU to make good on two defining aspects of its mission: to educate students to excel in their chosen paths and to serve the university’s local and broader communities. With those twin goals in mind, work is under way to create TEAM at 101 Archer: Tulsa Entertainment, Art, and Media. TEAM is an interdisciplinary initiative within Kendall College of Arts & Sciences to bring together various units, from the visual arts to multimedia production, in a flexible maker-space environment where theory is put into practice through meaningful collaboration.
Anchoring the TEAM initiative is our Arts, Culture, & Entertainment Management program, which will be housed at 101 E. Archer St. The program is built around signature experiential learning courses: two semester-long internships, three shorter practicums, and a student-staffed pro-bono consulting firm, ACE Associates, that provides needs assessments, research, focus groups, and other projects for area nonprofits. Classroom spaces on the third floor will allow students to study the theory and best practices in class (say, marketing and programming in the arts) and then apply those ideas in their work with area organizations.
The first floor has been home to the Oklahoma Center for Humanities, a TU initiative to promote programming, exhibitions, and scholarship around the central questions of what it means to be human in the 21st century. On view at the moment is We Protest, an exhibition exploring Oklahomans’ rights “to assemble for their own good,” enshrined in both national and state constitutions.
In the next three years we will build out the rest of the space, expanding the beautiful darkroom, creating podcasting bays, relocating our television studio (home of TUTV), outfitting a computer lab with tools for a variety of multimedia production, and building sound booths for music recording and production. The latter is part of the university’s expansion into music industry curriculum, which we began this year with the hire of Music Industry Professional in Residence Corey Taylor.
Guiding our efforts at 101 Archer is the recognition that students learn best when they find meaning in what they’re doing. In addition to gaining conceptual and technical facility, students will serve as producers and provide technical expertise for community members seeking to launch a podcast, record a short-form video, or lay some tracks for a demo (to name just a few). Stay tuned for more developments – a community grants program, flexible co-working space, and TU On View gallery – and join us at 101 Archer. If you have ideas for programming, ways to engage with our faculty and students, gifts in kind, or means to support this ambitious plan, please let us know. With this initiative, we affirm TU is the heart of Tulsa.
Embrace the ampersand,
Kirsten Olds
Interim Dean