New Jersey Innovation Acceleration Center

Innovation, Social Practice and Place-based Solutions

A new Special Topics Course

MGMT 699, Spring, 2022!

-How long will the recovery take and what will our communities look like?

-How will the past inform the future?
-Are students ready with the skill sets to successfully and creatively navigate across sectors and collaborate to design place-based solutions for long-lasting positive impact?

MTSM is pleased to present a new special topics graduate course for students who wish to explore creative planning and developing solutions that are inclusive, efficient and sustainable.  One of the best ways to do this is through strategic alignment with creative placemaking-- a process where community members, artists, arts and cultural organizations, developers, and other stakeholders use arts and cultural strategies to implement community-led change. Creative Placemaking has emerged as a critical tool that has been proven to transform neighborhoods, towns and cities by improving economic conditions and building a capacity for residents to take ownership of their local communities.

According to Smart Growth America; “It is ideal when artists, culture bearers and designers work in collaboration with cross-sector partners to diagnose community issues and creatively customize a vision and goals to address these issues.”

During this course students  will:

be immersed in the history of social policy development and current issues that are at the core of public discourse;
investigate and evaluate the impact of the process of intentionally infusing innovations in arts, culture and community-engaged design into economic development planning and management;
build upon their existing knowledge and expertise in order to bring value to collaborative issue identification and community-engaged solutions building;
examine the role of technology to enhance decision-making and implementation strategies; 
develop indicators of improved quality of life, inclusive community engagement, sustainability and community economic well-being;
research existing creative practices, technologies and tools and conduct analyses of their effectiveness toward inclusive community-engaged development and smart growth;
develop indicators of improved quality of life, inclusive community engagement, sustainability and community economic well-being;

Examine innovation and analyze technology tools and creative mechanisms and their relationship to equity, inclusive economic growth and opportunity, sustainable place-based solutions-building and supporting meaning-making in the places people live, work and play.

NJIT is a national higher education leader in creative placemaking training!