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Mission Statement
The Art Department prepares its graduates for success by offering a depth of studies based in both historical and contemporary approaches, and by training students to rigorously develop their ideas. Faculty focus on giving individual attention while at the same time setting an example of leadership in productivity in their fields of expertise. Our graduates frequently go on to advanced study in the field, and to careers in schools, universities, museums, galleries, and publishing. The distinguished record of alumni of our B.F.A., B.A., B.S. and M.F.A, programs in such fields as graphic design, art education, museum curatorship, and professional fine-art practice speaks to the strength of our curriculum and the commitment of our faculty. The impressive list of awards and grants won by our 300- plus undergraduate majors, our select group of graduate students, our faculty, and our alumni attest to the excellence of the USU Art Department.
I. SUPPLYING A DEPTH OF STUDY: Emphasis on Process
The Art Department is home to a rich heritage of consummate skill and knowledge of techniques across the faculty. It embraces the ability to forge new objects and ideas by calling upon historical methods, both in material and formal design, as well as to utilize recent information in technologies and theory developments. This range of media, techniques, and theoretical approaches explored by faculty and students in the Art Department includes everything from medieval tempera painting to advanced digital technology, and from functional ceramics to post-modern visual theory. Students are exposed to both historical and cutting-edge aspects of the visual arts because this allows them the maximum ability to craft their own critical approach.
II. ENCOURAGING CRITICAL THINKING: Focus on Content
Central to the mission of the Art Department is developing students’ ability to think critically about their own visual perceptions and artistic, pedagogical, or scholarly goals. Students and faculty at USU have historically been connected to their location or geography: the scale of the land, its unique character and related issues such as the natural and cultural history of the Intermountain region. However, we also encourage students and faculty to pursue whatever fires the imagination and passion, but still with a commitment to developing a professional focus, through both intellectual expansion and constant practice.
III. PROVIDING STRONG MENTORING: Teaching and Research
Our faculty is accessible, with small classes, a controlled enrollment, and competitive portfolio admissions. Professional faculty are intensely involved in providing interdisciplinary approaches to guiding their students’ investigation of materials and concepts, museum and field trips, in-depth library research and writing assignments, intensive critiques, and 4 study-abroad programs, in Korea, Scotland, Switzerland, and Germany. The department hosts internationally recognized visiting artists, scholars, artists-in residences, lectures and workshops.
Faculty closely supervise the students’ participation in group and solo exhibitions, as well as submissions to undergraduate research and creative opportunity grants, so that the students will gain professional experience. The faculty members themselves have regular exhibitions and publish articles and books, which represent their participation in the professional field, often on a national and international basis. They are asked to present workshops, develop exchange folios, give lectures, adjudicate exhibitions and present their work at conferences.
IV. OFFERING A FERTILE ENVIRONMENT: Unique and Diverse Experiences
The 4 four year B.F.A. and three year M.F.A. provide an experience similar to that of an artist-in-residence program. Living in Cache Valley and surrounded by vast mountain ranges with breathtaking vistas, students benefit from a vibrant cultural scene, rich in art, music, opera, theatre, design, poetry, public radio and television (as well as rodeo, county fairs, farmers markets, story-telling and western heritage/living museums.) The Art Department, now a century old, is part of the Marie Eccles Caine School of the Arts, within the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences of Utah State University. This land grant institution has a Carnegie I ranking and reaches 20,000 students across the main and five branch campuses.
The town of Logan itself has a population of about 100,000 and is ranked one of the safest cities in the United States. A day’s drive from San Francisco, a quick flight to Seattle or Los Angeles, Logan’s proximity to Salt Lake City provides access to travel, museums, galleries and all the amenities of a large metropolitan area. In addition nearby itineraries include exploring Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, and Utah’s outstanding desert landscapes.
While the natural and cultural environment provides our students with inspiration, our facilities provide them with space and equipment needed for quiet studio concentration – ample private studios for majors and graduates, large classrooms, and technicians to provide support with equipment, day and night. An atmosphere of study and work in the Fine Arts Complex is encouraged by the overall physical design, with study cubicles, open communal spaces, access to state-of-the-art computers and on site faculty offices and studios. The Art Department’s physical location also encourages crossdisciplinary activity by its proximity to the music, theater, interior design, and landscape architecture departments as well as the Kent Concert Hall, the Morgan Theater, and the new Performance Hall. The Tippets Gallery, the department’s primary venue, and the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, with its significant collection of contemporary ceramics and west-coast modernist art, are also housed in the same building.
