Mission Statement
The Art Department at Slippery Rock offers students a strong foundation to be an active artist. Faculty is comprised of art professionals from various backgrounds and disciplines, who are focused on providing individualized instruction for every student that we teach. Students who major in art will develop the capacity to make tangible their aesthetic responses to experience. Our programs provide students with a diverse background, which, in concert with their professional training, should lead to a successful career in art and applied vocations. By increasing awareness of themselves, their environment and their culture, and by learning to think and act creatively, students prepare themselves for a life enriched through art.
Objectives
The Art Department fosters a creative learning environment filled with opportunities for students to advance technically and conceptually while gaining broadened understanding of historical, theoretical and cultural context relevant to art and art-making. By graduation students in the Art programs shall:
- Art majors will possess the traits & abilities of an artist upon graduation.
- Freshman: perceptual openness, flexibility and adapting, courage to take risks, ability to analyze, self-confidence.
- Sophomore: ability to resist premature closure, sensitivity to problems, ability to synthesize.
- Junior: independence in making judgments, fluency.
- Senior: intrinsic motivation, high degree of self-awareness.
- Art majors continue to develop a direction: medium, idea and/or style.
- Art majors will display a technical expertise commensurate with their ideological level.
- Art majors will produce a quantity of work representative of time spent in the studio and successful understanding of studio techniques.
- Art majors will apply knowledge of art history to understand, evaluate and engage in art and art-making, recognizing their placement within a larger context.
Many of SRU's programs have achieved national recognition, and the entire University has enjoyed a growing reputation as one of the area's most vibrant academic communities. SRU's Art Department attracts a diverse population from throughout the world. The stimulating atmosphere of the Art Department and small class sizes provide the best possible student-to-professor relationships.
Instruction is individualized to meet each student's needs and interests. Advanced students attend a weekly conference with one of the art professors. In these sessions, students are encouraged to discuss and explore new ideas in depth.
The Art Department at SRU has an excellent and dedicated faculty. Members hold advanced degrees from prestigious institutions across the nation, and they maintain active exhibition and scholarly careers.
