Portland State University professor Darrell Grant always knew he wanted to be a musician.
Since childhood, steeped in the language of the piano, he studied classical music and jazz and played in school ensembles and a professional performing group. After earning his undergraduate degree at Eastman School of Music and a master’s in jazz studies from the University of Miami, he moved to New York to become a jazz musician.
“I wanted to be in conversation with the best musicians on the planet,” Grant says.
In New York, Grant achieved that dream, playing with jazz greats and recording widely acclaimed albums. But despite his success, he found himself searching for more.
“I wanted to shed this limited mythology, that somehow art and artists were peripheral to changing things in the world,” he says. “I was hungry for examples of artists who were using their music to galvanize populations, using the skills they learned in their art form to organize and lead and inspire.”
That mission brought Grant to PSU in 1996, where he began teaching jazz studies and exploring the intersection of art and activism, both in his professional work and with his students — including internationally celebrated, five-time Grammy winning artist esperanza spalding.*
“I was curious what would happen if we instilled a sense of agency at the foundation level when students were learning their skills. So at the same time they were learning to master their discipline, they were also deeply inquiring into why they were doing it, and what it could do in the world,” says Grant.
In 2017, that curiosity led Grant to create The Artist as Citizen Initiative alongside his School of Music & Theater colleague Suzanne Savaria. The initiative bridged artistic creativity and civic engagement with social advocacy as a core principle. “My work with Suzanne and the initiative led me to this idea — that art is this incredibly powerful currency for changing the world, a currency for human development.”
Over time, Grant saw an opportunity to expand his work by creating an interdisciplinary degree program that combines the free-flowing creative power of the artistic process with the emotional momentum and strategy of social justice work. When it launched this fall, PSU’s new Social Justice & the Arts program became the first of its kind in the nation.
The elixir of change
Given Grant’s embrace of community and collaboration, it’s no surprise that he sought out a partner to lead the new program. He found his match in Amanda Singer, an associate professor of interdisciplinary studies, who’s spent many years on the faculty of PSU’s Conflict Resolution program, teaching the principles of peace-building and bridging divides through dialogue, mutual understanding and respect.
Singer’s experience in conflict resolution provides a perfect complement to Grant’s extensive career engaging in nuanced, creative efforts to promote social justice through music. And, like Grant, Singer is also a musician, with classical voice training in art song and studies in jazz and improvisation.
“Music has been a transformative agent in my life, changing my perspective of the world, of my own capacity,” says Singer.
Singer and Grant share the belief that creativity can open up a new way of viewing seemingly intractable conflicts — a much-needed skill in our modern society, where disagreements about issues such as democracy, health care and education have become fraught with anger and fear.
Singer’s 30-year career in conflict resolution has focused on helping people create “third possibilities” — alternative solutions that go beyond two intractable and often oppositional ideas. She says the key ingredient that allows for a third possibility is storytelling, which she calls “the elixir of change.”
“Coming at conflicts such as social injustice, racism and oppression with the old narrative is not an effective strategy for change,” Singer says. “Bringing innovation and creativity and inviting the kind of collaboration that the arts necessitate is a great way to bring about transformative conflict resolution, liberation and justice.”
Unleashing imagination, creating magic
The foundation of PSU’s new Social Justice & The Arts program blends courses in the methods of art activism and social justice movements with electives in artistic practice and race and ethnic studies. Students will also complete a hands-on practicum, working at community organizations such as Portland Center Stage, Friends of Noise and the Red Door Project to create change through art.
The curriculum brings together areas of practice and study that are often kept separate from each other, such as visual arts and sociology. “Inviting that kind of collaboration within the academy might be the most exciting piece of the puzzle because you need to have new ideas and new perspectives to generate new possibilities,” says Singer.
The program is open to all students, whether they’re experienced artists or not. Some students arrive at PSU with many years of practice in classical violin or painting, while others come harboring a story that they lack imagination or creative skills.
“Once students discover that that story is patently untrue — that their imagination and creativity is applicable in whatever arena they choose to apply it — magic happens,” says Grant.
When visual artist Todd Rank ’24 studied with Grant, he worked on creative projects with children at Vestal Elementary, a K-5 school focused on social justice. “The class gave us the unique opportunity to share and create with others. As a major, this is a wonderful opportunity for anyone who is diving into the ‘why’ of self and group artistic expression,” says Rank.
For some students, the program courses offer a chance to dive into that “why.” For others, they are a transformational experience that shapes their future interests or careers.
We’re at a desperate moment for new ideas and solutions and strategies, which are all going to require a level of collaboration and strategic thinking that people don’t often have experience with. The time is very ripe for a program like this.
Sam Austin ’21, a musician and photographer, says his experiences in the courses were a catalyst for his current interest in urbanism and urban planning, and helped him see the effects that arts, creativity and community have on the well-being of our cities.
“I began to really appreciate the impact a concert, a community gathering space [or] a public art project can have within our urban fabric,” he says.
The chance to embed in community arts organizations to practice these skills has been invaluable to many students. While studying with Grant, saxophonist Jay Morfin-Montoya ’23 worked with the Montavilla Jazz Festival, assisting with rehearsals, helping with administrative tasks and supporting the festival’s outreach program at Vestal Elementary.
“Visiting the students at Vestal had a huge impact on me as a musician but also as a student who came from a community that is often underrepresented,” Morfin-Montoya says. Vestal’s community includes a number of lower-income families facing housing insecurity, addiction and other challenges, he notes.
Experiences like these show students that the arts can create space for empathy, mindfulness, bearing witness and validating others’ unique experience, which allows for more nuanced, lasting progress toward social justice and healthier communities.
It’s a lesson Grant sees his students living out in their careers — especially his former student, spalding, who’s taken her art and activism to the world stage.
spalding's career provides an example of what's possible with PSU's Social Justice & the Arts program. “I’ve always been inspired by esperanza, even back when she was a student of mine,” says Grant. “And the minute she got onto the national stage, she immediately used it as a platform to advocate for important causes.”
In the work for social justice, spalding has learned that artists play a critical role in making things that provide relief, respite, renewal, affirmation and encouragement to people who are on the front lines.
“I think what artists can really do is keep uplifting and encouraging and contributing, and be present with the process,” she says.
A pressing need
For Grant and Singer, the need for this program has never been more clear.
“Young people see the intersecting crises such as the war in Gaza and climate change and economic disparity and see a failure of empire,” says Singer. “And so we’re at a desperate moment for new ideas and solutions and strategies, which are all going to require a level of collaboration and strategic thinking that people don’t often have experience with. The time is very ripe for a program like this.”
Collaboration is the key to unlocking the power of art for problem-solving, says Grant. “I think we carry this myth of the artist as a singular genius,” he says. “Once you break it down, you recognize that no art is made in a vacuum by an individual. Art is a conversation between the people who are making it, the community that fosters it and the audience that experiences it and validates it.”
With the new Social Justice & the Arts major, students will be equipped to participate in that powerful conversation, emboldened with the skills of collaboration, mutual respect and peacebuilding through the language of art, as they graduate and move out into the world.
“A lot of people don't feel like they have the wherewithal to be a capital A artist but if you invite them into the work of social change and offer them those tools to make a difference, people gain confidence,” says Singer. “That magic equation will have a huge impact on where they go and what they do, what our institution looks like and what the city looks like as a result.”
*esperanza spalding prefers the use of lowercase letters in the written form of her name.