Visualizing Abolition Studies (VAST) Certificate Program

Visualizing Abolition Studies

The Visualizing Abolition Studies Certificate Program (VAST) provides students with access to a curriculum in critical studies of incarceration that builds through developing skills in analyzing art and visual culture. Based on a recognition that visual materials co-constitute our world and are often a primary means through which we come to access it, VAST will prepare students to examine not only the existing criminal legal system but also the means through which it has been studied in the past. As such, it offers students an arena in which to develop their critical thinking about the social and cultural systems that structure our lives.

Open to all students, the VAST Certificate Program encourages exploration of the many ways in which forms of visibility, representation, aesthetic production, and popular culture intersect with the carceral. The course of study is multidisciplinary and includes the potential for both creative and analytical coursework. Opportunities for practical learning, especially in collaboration with the Institute of the Arts and Sciences (IAS) and other area museums, are stressed. Above all, VAST courses encourage students to hone a sense of their own political commitments and capacities by supporting their views with a strong research foundation.

Students are encouraged to list the VAST Certificate on their resumés. The VAST Certificate will not appear on students’ transcripts but may be verified with the IAS.

For more information, visit: https://ias.ucsc.edu/visualizing-abolition-studies/ or contact vast@ucsc.edu. 

Certificate Level Learning Outcomes

As a result of completing the VAST certificate program, students will be able to:

• Think beyond the entrenched social dynamics that center on punishment.

• Analyze the role played by visual media in constructing past and present social systems.

• Create and/or interpret visual art in order to challenge carceral practices and fashion new modes of relationality. 

• Develop critical skills and workplace experience required to enter multiple post-graduate professions such as (but scarcely limited to): the arts, teaching, legal work, the non-profit sector, and social work.

Academic Advising for the Program

Undergraduate advising for the VAST Certificate Program is supported by the Institute of the Arts and Sciences. IAS staff offer specific information about navigating through the program and curriculum and assist students with academic planning, requirements, and extra-curricular opportunities related to the program. IAS staff also have the discretion to approve courses not listed below that may fulfill the VAST requirements on an individual basis. Please contact the IAS staff at vast@ucsc.edu. 

Students are not required to declare their intent to complete the certificate program in advance. They are strongly encouraged to arrange a meeting with the IAS staff early in their academic career, however, and must notify the IAS via email (vast@ucsc.edu) once their third VAST course is completed in order to verify their milestones and receive the certificate. 

Transfer Information and Policy

Students transferring to UC Santa Cruz are strongly encouraged to pursue the VAST Certificate. Transfer students may consult with the IAS staff about transferring credits to count towards the completion of the certificate program; requests will be evaluated on a course-by-course basis.

Faculty

The faculty of the VAST program can be found here.