(Editor's Note: Since this story was printed in 1999, the funding for UC Davis ArtsBridge has undergone a dramatic reduction in concert with cuts to higher education in the state budget. UC Davis students can now get course credits as interns in the program.)

Graduate art student Vonn Cummings-Sumner teaches first graders about color. They teach him about their learning curve as 6- and 7-year-olds.

The learning exchange takes place in a new outreach program, ArtsBridge, in which 22 UC Davis art, music and theater students teach in 20 Sacramento area classrooms. The UC Davis students get a scholarship and teaching experience through ArtsBridge. Area schools, many of which lack formal art instructors, have an opportunity to have artists visit once or twice a week for eight weeks or so.

Davis is implementing the program this fall; UC Irvine pioneered the program four years ago, and it became available throughout the UC system last spring. ArtsBridge encompasses both visual and performing arts, though in its first year at UC Davis focuses primarily on visual art.

"We're trying to reintegrate the arts into schools, getting across the idea that the arts are a vehicle for learning, not just a 'fun' side event. Art is a useful, hands-on process to help the child grow and understand themselves and the world at more than just the linear cognitive level," says Cornelia Schulz, art professor and director of UC Davis ArtsBridge.

ArtsBridge is supported through funds allocated to UC by the state legislature; each campus applies annually for part of that money. For the 1999-2000 academic year, UC Davis received $160,000.

The program is a win-win for both the student scholars and for the participating schools.

"I say to the scholars 'you have a mission' to assist in correcting the unfortunate dilemma of diminishing funds to the arts in K-12. This project tries to help bring the arts back into the classroom," Schulz says.