Posts
1.20.2009
have ever actually looked at art school mission statements?? who has, right? but as i was writing college recs recently for my students (mostly going to U.S. schools), i started wondering about how these mission statements might differ from each other when put side-by-side. so here's a sampling of just a few (some are only portions of a larger mission). i've included the college links too. tell me what you think of them... do they ring true to what you've heard or experienced?
CCA educates students to shape culture through the practice and critical study of the arts. The college prepares its students for lifelong creative work and service to their communities through a curriculum in fine art, architecture, design, and writing.
CALIFORNIA COLLEGE OF THE ARTS
The Savannah College of Art and Design exists to prepare talented students for professional careers, emphasizing learning through individual attention in a positively oriented university environment.
SAVANNAH COLLEGE OF ART
Otis prepares diverse students of art and design to enrich our world through their creativity, their skill, and their vision.
OTIS COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN
To provide excellence in the delivery of a global education in visual, design, media, and related arts, with attendant studies in the history and theory of those disciplines set within a broad-based humanistic curriculum in the liberal arts and sciences. To provide instruction for this education in a range of formats: written, spoken, media, and exhibition-based.
SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO
As practicing visual artists, we, the faculty of the Department of Art Practice hold as our principal goal the representation and analysis of human experiences through creative research in visual art.
BERKELEY
The mission of Pratt Institute is to educate artists and creative professionals to be responsible contributors to society. Pratt seeks to instill in all graduates aesthetic judgment, professional knowledge, collaborative skills, and technical expertise.
PRATT INSTITUTE
The mission of the Rhode Island School of Design, through its college and museum, is to educate its students and the public in the creation and appreciation of works of art and design, to discover and transmit knowledge and to make lasting contributions to a global society through critical thinking, scholarship and innovation.
RISD
Parsons focuses on creating engaged citizens and outstanding artists, designers, scholars and business leaders through a design-based professional and liberal education.
PARSONS
-cr
Brilliant post. That's just an excellent idea, and interesting results.
I'm impressed and intrigued by statements like:
"CCA educates students to shape culture through the practice and critical study of the arts"
...and underwhelmed by statements like:
"The Savannah College of Art and Design exists to prepare talented students for professional careers"
...but I wonder how accurately it reflects the level of innovation or enthusiasm at the different schools? I think it becomes an interesting question to ask- how much of these statements is pedagogy, and how much is advertising?
Since art schools like other colleges and universities are businesses the mission statement is often the part that the parents read. It is a marketing tool meant to pursued adults to fund their lovely talented progeny at these institutions.
Sorry if this sounds cynical but I have seen several occasions when students with poor portfolios, limited knowledge, and skills, accepted (even snapped up) by some of these schools when it was discovered that they did not require any financial aide.