Welcome to the First-Year Arts Program, Harvard Class of 2025!

August 2-13, 2021

If you are interested in participating, please email FAP Director Dana Knox. 

Registration for Pre-Orientation Programs is closed for the moment, but we will be accepting additional participants.  A second registration form will be available shortly.

The FAP Team is so excited to meet you all, and have the chance to help you explore all of the art-making resources, learning opportunities, and the community of artists that exist in our College.  A program of the Office for the Arts at Harvard (OFA), with the Dean of Students Office (DSO), we have created a truly one of a kind opportunity to ease you into the College experience through a language that truly speaks to us all; ART.                                

FAP covers 7 artistic disciplines, or “threads”, consisting of Creative Writing, Dance, Drama, Film, Music, Studio Arts, and Theater Design.  This year, our usual one week intensive program will be spread over two weeks to allow for an easier pace of entry.

When safety protocols forced us to reevaluate our program in Spring of 2020, the Resident Artists, the Proctors, and several campus offices rallied together to brainstorm.  What is the core of FAP?   What opportunities does this situation provide that we otherwise might never have had?  How can we as artists creatively problem solve to create a one of a kind experience?  How can we respond to so many challenging forces in our society, find our voices, and learn together how to lift each other up?  We have thought meaningfully about these questions and many others, and have come up with the three pillars of FAP; Community, Learning Opportunities, and Getting to Know Harvard.

Community:

• Our 17 Upperclass Proctors have been working hard to create an active summer social calendar that encourages First-Years to get to know each other, many campus student arts leaders, as well as a large number of arts faculty and staff.
• For the first time, FAP will NOT have an application process, so anyone who would like to participate can!

Learning Opportunities:

• Masterclasses:  Seven 90 minute classes with our professionally working alumni Resident Artists.
• Keynote Dialogues: Several 90 minute moderated discussions and Q&A’s with nationally renowned artists.
• Workshops: Thirty smaller form classes that focus on specialty hands-on art making taught by faculty, staff, and alumni (Each FAPper will choose three).

Getting to know Harvard:

• Involvement Opportunities: how to get engaged with curricular and extracurricular art making opportunities on campus
• The First-Year Musical: a 60 minute info session with last year’s creative team about what the First-Year Musical is, how to get involved, how they created their show, and how they adapted to transition the show into an online format, followed by a production of their show!

Please follow us on Facebook and Instagram!

First-Year Arts Program (FAP)

Harvard College Dean of Students Office

1 Oxford Street

University Hall, Ground Floor South Suite

Cambridge, MA 02138