When Nia Parks first experienced MICA, she wasn’t a graduate student or even in high school. She was a Baltimore grade school student at the Village Learning Place, an after-school center where MICA students volunteered to teach collage.

While most children rushed to recess, Parks lingered over scraps of paper and glue, captivated by the possibilities of layering color and telling a story. “These exercises helped me experiment,” she recalls, “and now I’m a collage artist getting my MFA at MICA.”

Years later, another thread pulled her back. Her middle-school art teacher, Amy Beck Moreno, a graduate of MICA’s Master of Arts in Teaching program, recognized Parks’ spark. She encouraged her to take youth classes at MICA, building early bridges between the young artist’s instinct for expression and the college’s legacy of community-based art.

That sense of belonging — of being seen and guided by a creative lineage — stayed with her. When it came time to pursue graduate study, Parks’ creative journey came full circle. “When I thought about who impacted me and the kind of impact I want to have, MICA was the clear choice,” she says. “Art and activism come together here in a way that feels alive.”

The Force Within

For Parks, the MFA in Community Arts program isn’t simply about making art; it’s about transforming the artist. “There’s a liberatory focus,” she explains. “It’s not just about you as an artist; it’s about you as a person. They force you to grow.”

That growth happens in studio critique and in service learning, in neighborhood projects and classroom reflections. Students are pushed to confront personal assumptions as much as aesthetic choices. “I’ve learned to see my own privileges, like being able-bodied, which I hadn’t really thought about before,” she says.

Within MICA’s Community Arts ecosystem (spanning the MFA program, the undergraduate Center for Community Arts, and the Community Art Collaborative [CAC]), students learn to connect creativity and civic engagement. Together, they live out what Parks calls MICA’s “one mission: thriving with Baltimore.”

“It’s not just a phrase,” she says. “You really feel it. We’re learning that community work doesn’t mean parachuting in; it means building relationships, listening deeply, and understanding how our art can serve.”

Coming Full Circle

Parks’ own community practice now bridges generations and neighborhoods. Through the France-Merrick Fellowship, she partnered with Bolton North Senior Living to develop intergenerational art experiences, while simultaneously working with Baltimore Youth Arts  (BYA) through the CAC.

“Working with senior citizens, there’s so much wisdom there,” she reflects. “They’d say something that was exactly what I needed to hear. Then I’d go teach youth at BYA and share those same insights. It became this beautiful full-circle exchange: elders to youth, youth back to me, and me back to elders.”

The experience deepened her belief that vulnerability is a form of leadership. “MICA taught me how to be transparent,” she says. “That’s where real community healing happens.”