Mission & Goals

The mission of the Department of Visual Arts is to provide quality education in the areas of art education, art history, fine art studio, photography, and visual communication design. The Department cultivates high standards for creativity, craft, conceptual under-standing, critical analysis, historical scholarship, and pedagogy in all of these areas as they relate to the visual arts and visual culture.

Central to these pursuits are the artistic practice and scholarly research of faculty, the dedication of support staff to the department’s educational objectives, and engaged teaching, learning, and scholarship. The Department of Visual Arts is a thriving learning community grounded in the Marianist tradition of educating the whole person. It is fully integrated with the College of Arts and Sciences and the University and contributes significantly to our institutional commitment to excellence.

Goals

Our faculty are professionals in the fields of art history, fine arts, graphic design, photography and art education.  While we offer six degrees plans across major areas within the arts, it is important to note that we all are committed to the following goals.

The Department of Visual Arts will:

• enrich and link all of its distinctive degree programs through an integrated approach to foundation courses and experiences;
• respond creatively and thoughtfully to the challenge of balancing traditional practices and ideas in the visual arts with new technologies and perspectives;
• strongly support both liberal and professional education through its attention to both theory and practice; and
• ensure that high standards are met in all of its programs through assessments that include rigorous, department-wide reviews of students in their second and senior years.