The UC Davis Chicana/o Studies Program will host a community kickoff Wednesday, Dec. 8, in Woodland to announce a new art program for local junior and senior high school students called Taller Arte Del Nuevo Amanecer (TANA -- Workshop of the New Dawn).

The event will take place 5-7 p.m. in the Yolo County Administration Building, 625 Court St., Woodland, with the formal introductions beginning at 5:45 p.m.

The art workshop is just the start of many community ventures planned by the Chicana/o Studies Program as part of its commitment to serving the public, according to Adela de la Torre, program director.

"Woodland is a natural connection because UC Davis already has several relationships in the community, such as with the schools, plus the city has a large Latino population," she says. "We see this outreach as critical for the development of our faculty, since by definition our ethnic studies program has no credibility unless we are rooted in the community."

Besides the arts workshop, de la Torre envisions engagement between the campus and the community on other important topics such as education, public health, political participation, diabetes and AIDS, domestic violence and the celebration of the Latino culture.

The Chicana/o Studies Program is working to get foundation grants and other external funding to support the art workshop and other projects, de la Torre said.

TANA will be a silk-screen and print workshop for junior high and high school artists in the Woodland community and vicinity. Plans call for the workshop facility to include a gallery that will feature the work of young, emerging artists in the community.

"As part of our outreach mission at the university, the Chicana/o Studies Program wants to give back to the community," says Malaquias Montoya, a professor of Chicana/o studies and art, and founder of the new program. "We want to reach kids who may not believe that art can play an important part in their lives."

He is working closely with community agencies to find a site for TANA's workshop and gallery and expects to announce a site in the near future. In addition, to draw talented students to the project, Montoya is planning to develop relationships with the art teachers at the junior highs and high schools.

Assisted by UC Davis students and a workshop director, Montoya will bring silkscreen printing courses, an exhibition/gallery space, an artist-in-residence program, and community-oriented graphic arts services to Woodland and greater Yolo County. Carlos Francisco Jackson, who worked with Montoya on previous art collaborations in the Woodland area schools, is slated to be the first executive director and master printer for TANA.

Montoya envisions that youths working in TANA will soon be designing and producing posters and flyers for community organizations. In the act of providing a service to their community, the youths will become active in the creation of culture, he says.

The Chicana/o Studies Program at UC Davis offers a series of community-based arts courses built into its curriculum. Both undergraduate and graduate students can take a mural workshop, a series of silkscreen poster workshops and a survey of Chicana/o art.

Freeman Elementary School and Woodland High School in Woodland and Grafton Elementary School in Knights Landing are sites where murals were developed through collaborative projects headed by Montoya and Jackson, a former graduate student.