At the beginning of the police academy, each student (officers in training in New Haven are referred to as “students” rather than “recruits” or “cadets”) is assigned to a term project group of 5-6 police students. Efforts are made to construct diverse working groups, by race, ethnicity, and gender. This is important to enable learning and relationship building across racial, ethnic, and gender differences.

Each group is assigned to research and create an art project about common concerns that come up regularly in the course of police-community dynamics. These issues traditionally have triggered or reinforced fear, distrust, and violence. For example, individuals inside and outside the police department identify police/youth of color interaction as a persistent problem affecting police, communities of color, and the city in general. Other topics addressed include mental illness, homelessness, and domestic violence.

Students meet outside of class, in casual settings, often in each others’ homes and communities. This informal interaction creates opportunities for learning about each other’s backgrounds and cultures, for interacting in creative ways, for uncovering and challenging stereotypes, and for building trust.

The students are graded collectively, and up to one third of each student’s final academy grade is based upon the term project. Grades are based on collaboration, original research, creativity, organization, and presentation. Collective grading encourages students to work together as a group.

Each group is assigned two outside advisors:

	a subject matter expert in the problem area, and
	an artist with experience in using art as a tool for community problem solving. These artistic advisors both assist in the process of creating a finished work of art and facilitate conversations between students about the issues they are addressing.

Ideally, these outside advisors are “repeat players” who work regularly with the police department and the training academy on addressing community problems.

Each policing student group participates in “clinical rotations,” visiting locations in the community like soup kitchens, battered women’s shelters, and centers for homeless and runaway youth. Students have frequent contact with members of the community during the term projects because community members with expertise in relevant areas are volunteer facilitators of the projects, and because students spend time interviewing New Haven residents about the topics they are addressing.