Intellectual Virtues Academy High Brings Healing Through Art

Long Beach, CA, April 23, 2021: Intellectual Virtues Academy (IVA) and Jordan high school students partnered with the Coalition for a Healthy North Long Beach to design and paint a collaborative mural. The Coalition’s aim was to create an opportunity for students to help their community heal through art and city beautification. The one-hundred foot mural stretches across four alley walls in North Long Beach, between Atlantic Avenue and Lime, off East 61st Street.

Long Beach artists -- Guillermo Avalos, Sergio Butch, and Gregory Navarro Pickens -- met virtually with students and community members to define the mural theme and to choose visual representations. The theme “Mexican Tree of Life” emerged with a student emphasis on featuring life during the pandemic for essential workers and those suffering from isolation. The mural elements were carefully considered to represent a balance between this difficult time period and hope for our future.

“It was a great lesson in teamwork,” shared IVA High student Vicky A., “I am proud to be a part of a school that takes action in Long Beach.”

Vice Mayor Rex Richardson visited IVA High’s community meeting to present awards of recognition to the student artists and to personally thank them for their contribution. The mural gives voice to the perspective of this generation, and captures the importance of creative expression and collaboration within the Long Beach community.

IVA is based on an “intellectual virtues educational model,” which combines rigorous engagement of academic subjects with an emphasis on cultivating intellectual character virtues like curiosity, open-mindedness, and humility. It was celebrated in the recent New York Times top 10 bestseller, The Coddling of the American Mind for fostering “stronger, wiser” students. The high school is a non-profit, public, charter high school authorized by the Los Angeles County Office of Education in 2016. Its affiliated middle school opened in 2013-14 and is authorized by the Long Beach Unified School District. Together they serve 360 sixth through twelfth graders in Long Beach and are still accepting applications.

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