CalArts recently signed a student transfer agreement with Los Angeles City College, providing community college students the chance to transfer to the Herb Alpert School of Music at CalArts.
The agreement will offer LACC music students who are interested in completing a four-year undergraduate degree a clear pathway to transfer, CalArts officials said in a release Thursday, adding the move is part of a larger vision to increase access to arts education by building connections and pathways between pre-college arts programs, community colleges and four-year institutions.
Both music schools at CalArts and LACC are supported by The Herb Alpert Foundation and are named for the renowned Los Angeles-based musician and artist, Herb Alpert, which is something that helped foster the agreement, the release stated.
“CalArts strongly believes that the artist plays a pivotal role in our society, as culture-maker, as truth-teller and as a visionary whose work often shows us a better way forward,” CalArts President Ravi Rajan said.
The new transfer agreement provides priority consideration for LACC music students, offers a clear matrix of classes that are transferable to CalArts and was the result of LACC and CalArts music faculty partnering to align the curricula, according to officials. Faculty at both schools are expected to continue to identify and prepare LACC students who are most likely to successfully transfer into CalArts.
“We are thrilled by this agreement,” which gives Music Academy students in the Herb Alpert Music Center the potential to enter one of the most prestigious music programs in California, said Christine Park, chair of the music department at LACC’s Herb Alpert Music Center.
“Part of what makes our music program so successful is the broad range of musicians and the different perspectives they bring to CalArts,” said David Rosenboom, dean of CalArts’ school of music.
“The LACC transfer agreement will continue this tradition of strengthening our program through musical diversity.”
Applicants from LACC will need 60 units of baccalaureate level work to transfer into CalArts, including 22 units of general education courses. Students must also complete a music theory and skills placement examination during their first week at CalArts because placement into specific music courses will be determined by the proficiency demonstrated on the exams.
The agreement was finalized during the 2018-2019 academic year, officials said, meaning LACC music students who wish to pursue a degree at CalArts can already begin looking into how to take advantage of the new agreement.
