Arts Division
Porter College, D Building,
(831) 459-4940
http://arts.ucsc.edu
The Arts Division offers creative practice and critical, historical, and theoretical studies of art and culture at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The division is committed to building our students' innovative and analytic thinking as scholars and impactful voices and visions as artists. Instruction in the arts inspires and develops the skills needed for individual and collaborative thought and action within and beyond the university. Our faculty consists of artists, performers, historians, critics, makers, and theorists working across the arts in a global context, and addressing some of the most pressing issues of our day.
Undergraduate education in the arts includes bachelor of arts (B.A.) programs in art, art and design: games and playable media, creative technologies (online major), film and digital media, history of art and visual culture, music, and theater arts, and a bachelor of music (B.M.). There are also concentrations offered in film and digital media (integrated critical practice), history of art and visual culture (curation, heritage, and museums), and music (contemporary practices, global musics and Western art music). Minors are offered in film and digital media, history of art and visual culture, electronic music, jazz spontaneous composition and improvisation, Western art music, theater arts, and dance.
Established graduate programs include the interdisciplinary digital arts and new media master of fine arts (M.F.A.) program, the social documentation master of fine arts (M.F.A.), the music master of arts (M.A.), and the theater arts master of arts (M.A.), as well as the recently launched environmental art and social practice master of fine arts (M.F.A.). Doctoral programs include the music composition doctor of musical arts (D.M.A.), and Ph.D. programs in music, visual studies, and film and digital media.
The Arts Division provides students with access to quality research, work and maker spaces, including a digital-arts research facility with two experimental media labs, along with a state-of-the-art music recital hall, practice rooms, electronic music studios, and recording facilities, four theaters for dramatic productions, filmmaking studios and editing suites, surround-sound screening theaters, drama and dance studios, painting and printmaking studios, a foundry (unique to the U.C. system), photography and computer laboratories, and specialized lecture and seminar classrooms. McHenry Library houses an extensive collection of books and periodicals on the arts, as well as an analog and digital slide collection, music scores and recordings, and one of the largest collections of films and DVDs in the University of California system. Exhibition space in the arts includes galleries for students, faculty, and visiting artists to show their work. The Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery presents curated exhibitions to the university community and the general public. The Institute of the Arts and Sciences Galleries, a focus for interdisciplinary creative work, exhibitions, conferences, symposia, and seminars offers a robust schedule of programming and curatorial opportunities.
Other Division Highlights: The newly launched online B.A. major in Creative Technologies which is the first online major in the UC system. The Performance, Play and Design Department offers a wide variety of performances in four venues, ranging from faculty-directed productions of classics and musicals on our Mainstage to intimate student-created productions in our century-old converted barn (note: Barn performance lab is temporarily closed and awaiting renovation). Student work is regularly broadcast on SCTV. The Music Department hosts an annual festival of contemporary music, April in Santa Cruz, and an opera in the spring quarter of each year, and presents a variety of solo and ensemble concert programs throughout the year. The History of Art and Visual Culture Department hosts a series of speakers and seminars each year on rotating topics, some of which are supported by the Patricia and Rowland Rebele Endowed Chair, and sponsors the grad student-run journal Refract. The Art Department sponsors regularly scheduled public presentations as well as quarterly open studios and a print sale in the spring. Art now has an M.F.A. Exhibition for Environmental Art and Social Practice in the spring. The Film and Digital Media Department offers a year-round Visiting Artists Series, co-sponsors the Visual Media Cultures Colloquium, curated by FDM Ph.D and Visual Studies Ph.D students, and the end-of-year screenings for the M.F.A. in Social Documentation draw many Santa Cruz residents every year. The Digital Arts and New Media M.F.A. program regularly sponsors digital arts events, such as festivals, symposia, visiting speakers, and exhibitions of student work, both on- and off-campus, culminating in an annual exhibition of graduate thesis research each spring. The Arts Division supports the dissemination of student work through the Arts Dean's Fund for Excellence and provides professional internship opportunities through Arts Professional Pathways and departmental internship programs.
For more information about specific programs in the arts, please visit catalog listings and web sites for: Art; Creative Technologies; Digital Arts and New Media; Film and Digital Media; History of Art and Visual Culture; Music; and Performance, Play and Design, which hosts Art + Design: Games + Playable Media and Theater Arts.