Department of Visual Arts, Humanities and Theatre

The Department of Visual Arts, Humanities and Theatre offers degree programs in visual arts, philosophy and religion, and theatre. Each program leads to either the Bachelor of Science or the Bachelor of Arts degree. It also offers basic survey and special topics courses in the humanities.

The department is actively involved with special programs and events, as well as various creative, expressive, and scholarly endeavors by faculty and students. Overall, it prepares students for positions of leadership by imparting knowledge, skills, and proficiencies which they may need to perform in their professions and function in their communities. The department provides students with a sound general education, specialized instruction, practical experience, and exposure to distinguished visual and performing artists, philosophers, and theologians.

Student majors are expected to elect courses from one of the degree programs within the department.

Faculty

Professors: DeCosmo, Janet L.;; LaBossiere, Michael; Matthews, Valencia E.; Wells, Luther D.
Associate Professors: Harding, Kimberly K.;; Liu, Nan; Owens, A. Nevell Williams, Derek; Wiltsher, Harris, II; Zhang, Li Ping
Assistant Professors: Arana-Downs, Ruben; Carnley, Edith; Duncan, Marci; Faison, Stephen; Muwwakkil, Zakiya; Roache, Aja; Scriven, Darryl; Sissle, Noble; Webb, James;

Visual Arts

The Visual Arts curricula is designed to give students a knowledgeable survey of each field and expose future artists and art academics to a variety of media and academic courses for the enrichment of their creative processes to build critical, historical, philosophical and productive perspectives and prepare them for successful careers in the fine arts. Our goal is to develop persons qualified for positions in fine art, art administration, art history, multimedia design, and related two and three dimensional art / design fields.

Students in the Visual Arts program are directed in studio production through a variety of courses in two and three-dimensional design, digital media and art history. Behind each work of art lies countless hours of research, critical reflection and the application of skills acquired in the classroom. The encouragement of a cross-pollination of traditional media and digital technology is strongly encouraged and often utilized.

Philosophy and Religion

The program in Philosophy and Religion is designed to accommodate students who want to concentrate in either philosophy or religion. The program is designed to engage the student in an examination of the chief rival philosophical and religious approaches to life (including their historical, cultural, social and practical imports); to develop within the student an enlarged capacity for logical, reflective, coherent reasoning; and to encourage the student to work out a conceptual framework for his or her life commitment.

The program is preparatory for advanced training in other fields, such as law, education, international relations, statecraft, intellectual history, philosophy, religious studies and theology.

In addition to meeting the institutional undergraduate degree requirements, majors in the program are required to earn a minimum of thirty (30) semester hours of credit in philosophy and religion courses. The Philosophy major requires 21 hours in philosophy and nine (9) hours in religion. The Religion major requires 21 hours in religion and nine (9) hours in philosophy. No grade below “C” will be accepted in any major course.

Theatre

The belief that theatre students profit most by a basic understanding of the totality of theatre before pursuing specializations is reflected by the present curriculum requirements. The program in theatre offers pre-professional undergraduate preparation by combining acting, directing, designing and production with literary, historical, managerial and creative study of drama.

Programs

Bachelor’s Degree

Master’s Degree

Minor