Engagement

Partnering with diverse arts and culture organizations, industry research partners, and other educational institutions is at the core of FCAT's collaborative and interdisciplinary identity. We believe in providing our students with opportunities for hands-on learning that connects them with their community. We also recognize and value the work of our community partners and are eager to support their efforts, especially as they pertain to equity, diversity and inclusion, and Indigenous reconciliation.

If you are interested in partnering with us to find new insights in media communications; uncover solutions to intractable design challenges; harness the power of media, art and design, or explore research opportunities that reach across traditional academic boundaries; get in touch at fcateng@sfu.ca.

Through a variety of initiatives aimed at introducing prospective students to FCAT’s disciplines and areas of study, we partner with school districts and other non-profit organizations to offer programs that encourage youth to explore new ideas and gain new skills.

CEED Community Podcast

Goals: Support CEED community society in developing a community podcast and provide a 6-month paid opportunity for an FCAT grad student to apply their learning and provide a community service. Enable CEED volunteers to continue independently producing the podcast after conclusion of the pilot period.
Audience: CEED Volunteers
Our Involvement: We provided equipment (temporarily) and hired an FCAT graduate student to provide training in podcasting foundations, including story generation, script writing, interviewing practices, audio recording and editing, and distribution.
Additional Notes: CEED Society determined the content of the podcast episodes. They selected the volunteers, identified the stories, led the interviews and hosted the episodes. With FCAT support, CEED released three podcast episodes. The CEED Society successfully launched their podcast CEED Pod in Spring 2021, and they have released another 8 episodes in the last two years.

CEED Podcast in the News: Maple Ridge News - "CEED Centre in Maple Ridge launches new podcast"

Ethos Lab

Goals: Support Ethos Lab, a non-profit incubator for black youth, in engaging youth and provide paid opportunities for Black FCAT students to apply their learning and provide a community service.
Audience: Black youth
Our Involvement: Hiring Black grad students to develop and facilitate workshops at Ethos Lab. Extended the contract twice to allow the student to participate in spring break programming.

Summer Courses with School Districts

Goals: Collaborate with the Burnaby and Surrey school districts on a number of summer courses
Audience: Students, Grades 5-12
Our Involvement: Hiring SFU undergrad or grad students to help support the course and mentor the enrolled students. Provide classroom and computer lab space at SFU Burnaby and Surrey, as well as select equipment (cameras, lighting, etc.), for enrolled students.

Course topics have included:

Filmmaking, Grade 10-12
Documentary and Women in Computing Science, Grade 10-12
Storytelling and Cinema for Grade 5-7
Film Academy, Grade 9-12

Dual Credit Courses

Goals: Provide a cohort of Surrey high school students, selected by Surrey School District, an opportunity to earn high school credit and university credit for attending FCAT courses, at no cost to the students.
Audience: Surrey School District High School Students
Our Involvement: FCAT is in discussion with Surrey School District to offer a course of IAT 102: Graphic Design in the evening at SFU Surrey.
Additional Notes: The school district will pay the tuition for the course and be reimbursed by the Ministry of Education. There will be no other costs for the students to attend the course.

Interactive Workshop Series

Goals: Support schools in engaging at-risk youth and provide paid opportunities for FCAT students to apply their learning and provide a community service.
Audience: At-risk High School and Elementary School students
Our Involvement: Hiring FCAT students to develop and host two different extracurricular workshop series to Burnaby and Surrey at-risk students:

Visual Art Club: Weekly arts sessions for at-risk elementary school students at seven elementary schools.
Digital Media Art Club: Weekly 90-minute workshops for at-risk high school students, held remotely or at SFU Surrey.

Individual Workshops

Goals: Educating students on topics including careers in FCAT disciplines, digital literacy, and graphic design; provide paid opportunities for FCAT students to apply their learning and provide a community service
Audience: High School and Elementary School students
Our Involvement: Hiring students to offer one-off presentations or workshops for high school and elementary school classes.

FCAT Undergraduate Student Conference

Goals: To celebrate and explore the diverse range of student work produced within our faculty and to bring students, faculty, staff and industry members together to share knowledge and build meaningful connections.
Audience: Local High School students, FCAT students, alumni, faculty, and staff, Industry members
Our Involvement: We facilitate and provide a venue to showcase performances, papers, installations, and displays created by students from each of our schools.

Click here to watch all of our 2021 presentations or see a few of them below.