Clara Dudley is a volunteer and site supervisor for the Santa Cruz needle exchange program. She was inspired early on during an Oxbow presentation by Jeff Schoenberg on homeless IDUs in San Francisco and the visibility of his kind of ethnography. It is a movement close to her heart (harm reduction, needle exchange, grassroots disease prevention, drug policy reform, etc). She has been a co-speaker at the National Harm Reduction Conference and is very proud of this program....to quote her "we didn't start it but we carry it on with love." She is also the Chapter Leader for the newly formed Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) chapter at UC Santa Cruz.
In the year leading up to Oxbow, I became obsessed with the program, I was entranced with reading testimonials and researching interdisciplinary learning styles. When I arrived at Oxbow I was never disappointed, despite my endless expectations. I will forever cherish the time I spent at Oxbow and the connections I made there. Through Oxbow I was able to hone into the ideas I was thinking about, to refine my artistic process and to see the world in a new light every day of my life. I'm not going to say that without Oxbow I wouldn't be the person I am today, but I will say that without Oxbow it would have taken me at least four years to become who I am after one Oxbow semester.
— Phoebe Dubisch, Fall 2018
The Oxbow School has both a local and national reputation for excellence. Oxbow produces great artists. In its studio, these emerging artists have a community of creative peers who respect one another and foster an expectation to produce thoughtful, sophisticated work.
— Paul Coffey, Vice Provost and Dean of Community Engagement, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Oxbow forced me to create, and by creating, I established foundation for my thought.
— Jamie Roux, Spring 2003
A School Like No Other