About

the London HUA Project Center

Overview

The WPI Media Project site was created in January 2017 to showcase the creative works and other deliverables submitted by WPI students participating in the London Humanities and Arts Project Center. In addition to featuring these works to other WPI students, an objective of this site is to serve as a resource for others by providing information, multimedia, documentation, and other content for future London Humanities and Arts (HUA) students. The site was created by V.J. Manzo, PhD, Director of the London Humanities and Arts project center from 2013 to the present as a companion to the recruiting site http://www.wpilondon.org also created by Manzo.

2013 - 2017

V.J. Manzo became director of the London HUA center in 2013. The project center failed to meet the minimum number of students to run for several years before being restructured significantly. The major restructuring came in 2016 in terms of the flexibility of enrollment and standardization of expectations including the creation of the project profile/project milestone format; instead of an advisor in music only working onsite with music students, any WPI humanities and arts faculty member could advise any student on up to three interdisciplinary independent study projects in order to satisfy their degree requirements (three courses in a depth area of humanities and arts, two courses in a breadth area of humanities and arts, and a capstone emphasis in the depth area). The deliverable wiki site format (this site) introduced transparency into the center; students and faculty could see every contribution made by a student on their profile page from a complete list of all created and edited articles to milestone projects. The wiki format also introduced transmedia storytelling elements as the core style of the deliverable; students participated in daily activities such as museum visits and site exploration, and captured rich multimedia content to infuse into their project milestones. The program restructuring was accompanied by a new recruitment website created by Manzo, http://www.wpilondon.org, and a new recruitment strategy and slogan: "See London. Graduate Early", which referenced the notion that students completing three courses in London over the summer would, therefore, be positioned a full term ahead in terms of coursework. This aligned with the "More In Four" vision as part of WPI's strategic plan. The restructuring also yielded the need for a new WPI course created by Manzo, HU2900 - Project Center Preparation, to serve as a co-requisite prep course for students participating in the onsite London experience. Students participate in this course the term prior to departure and devise the three goals of their project milestones in addition to completing other preparatory work related to the onsite experience.

The first group of WPI students participating in the restructured London HUA project center experience occurred in 2017 under the advisement of WPI HUA professors V.J. Manzo, music, and Constance Clark, history.