New Jersey City University and Da Vinci Initiative Announce New Certificate Program

The NJCU Division of Professional Education and Lifelong Learning (PELL) is proud to announce a new partnership with the Da Vinci Initiative to offer a non-credit certificate in art.

In making the announcement, Dr. Michael Edmondson, Dean of Professional Education and Lifelong Learning stated, “This new partnership allows two Jersey City organizations to better serve the local artists, art teachers, and anyone in the community interested in learning how about the atelier approach to art.”

The Da Vinci Initiative is a 501(c)(3) non-profit education foundation that supports skill-based learning in K-12 art classrooms. The Da Vinci Initiative believes that the most creative artists are those with the most tools at their disposal for making artwork, and provides atelier training and resources to students in order to help them incorporate skill-based methods into their practices. The Da Vinci Initiative works with teachers nationally and internationally through online classes, art education conferences, keynote speaker services, weekend retreats, district-wide workshops, and more.

 The Da Vinci Initiative Atelier offers training in an "apprenticeship" system with a subscription enrollment policy. Students pay a monthly fee of $720 and are welcome to attend the studio hours of their choosing, with critiques available from an atelier-trained artist on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The studio is open Mondays through Thursdays from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. One weekend workshop (runs 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and again from 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.) each month is included for all enrolled participants.

On the new partnership with NJCU, Mandy Theis, president and co-founder of the Da Vinci Initiative, noted, “Our collaboration with NJCU is the first of its kind, and we are very excited to further our ability to connect with local artists, art teachers, and members of the community.”