Visual Arts (BS, BA, minor)

Program Goals

The mission of the Visual Arts Program within the Visual and Performing Arts Department is providing academic, aesthetic, and technical challenges through a diverse curriculum to talented students who are interested in the production, analysis and promotion of the Visual Arts. Our faculty offers well-organized curricula in a nurturing environment where students are stimulated to ask questions, enabled to solve problems, and challenged to become competitive in their chosen field of study. The Visual Arts Program provides our students with an understanding of the important role played by African Americans in the visual arts and challenges them to evolve that knowledge into an understanding of their role in the arts within a technologically infused global environment. By encouraging discovery through experimentation, the Visual Arts program prepares its students for advanced studies in the liberal arts and present day careers.

Outcomes

Upon completion of the Visual Arts program major, students will be able to:

• Acquire, research, understand and accurately recall vocabulary inherent to studio arts, art history, art criticism, and museum studies.
• Apply and present ideas, in written and oral format, accurately using vocabulary inherent to studio arts, arthistory, art criticism, and museum studies.
• Acquire and apply techniques and skills employing a variety of traditional art media and new(electronic/computer generated) media for the creation of finished artworks.
• Effectively apply the elements of art and design, and principles of organization in Two and Three-dimensional compositions.
• Evaluate their own art, and/or that of others, in terms of media, formal composition, content and context, anddemonstrate an ability to analyze the formal/visual qualities of an artwork in isolation and/or in comparison toother art.
• Research theories about art, formulate thesis statements, and write papers that illustrate knowledge of various artists, art styles, and periods. Final products must reflect proficiency and command of bibliographic citationmethods (Chicago Manual of Style) used in the field.
• Articulate the history and organizational structure of different museum types and arts organizations, including their respective mission goals, collection theories and processes, and education philosophies.
• Create a digital and hard-copy portfolio.
• Create works of art and/or design based on original research, self-directed planning and/or following a self-selected/created thesis.  

Requirements

Please see the University Catalog for more information and program requirements.

Contact

For more information contact the Visual and Performing Arts Department.