Student Resources
The mission of the Department of Art, Art History & Design is to provide students with intellectually informed, hands-on instruction in creative studies within the context of a liberal arts university. A full-time faculty of practicing artists, designers and historians foster a stimulating learning environment where the unique talents and perspectives of individual students can emerge and flourish.
Throughout history, one of the shared features of great civilizations and cultures has been the creative and critical influence of their art and design. One of the inherent values of visual art is that by giving tangible form to the social, political and private aspects of human existence, it makes visible the invisible; it provokes the expansion of intellectual boundaries, gives form to complex ideas, reveals deep but abstract emotions and extends our capacity to comprehend the lives of others. Each of the programs in our department offers a distinct means of confronting and understanding the important visual aspects of our wider engagement with and construction of the world.