The College of The Arts is a vibrant and unique environment combining traditional and contemporary arts in all forms. It includes: The School of Art & Art History, The School of Architecture & Community Design, The School of Music, The School of Theatre and Dance, Graphicstudio, and The Contemporary Art Museum.
Visual and performing artists, architects and scholars collaborate as faculty and work together with students to inspire, educate, create and innovate. They contribute to the region’s cultural vitality while enhancing the college’s reputation as an international leader in artistic study, research, production, performance and community design.
The College of The Arts aspires to achieve national and international prominence—a goal that supports the university’s move toward achieving membership eligibility in the Association of American Universities, America’s most prestigious higher education organization. We are actively engaged in the Tampa Bay arts community while focusing on research and teaching within a global context. With a significant investment in infrastructure, we will create a lively, relevant and collaborative learning environment in which we encourage dreams, support talent, facilitate intellectual and creative growth, and infuse an unstoppable passion for the arts.
Making the Experience Possible: Scholarships and Fellowships
Every deserving student who wants an opportunity for a college education should have one. Our scholarship program ensures that our doors stand open to the best and most gifted undergraduates whose passion leads them to our innovative, contemporary and distinctive arts and architecture programs.
Competitive graduate fellowships will enable us to expand our graduate student population by attracting and retaining the high caliber master’s and doctoral degree candidates who are the hallmarks of a distinguished research institution. Funding priorities include:
- Fellowships for graduate students in architecture, art and music
- Fellowships for the PhD in Music Education
- Scholarships for undergraduate students across all disciplines
- Support for a special new Museum Studies program offered by the Contemporary Art Museum
Enriching the Experience: Endowed Chairs and Directorships
Our students deserve to learn from the very best, and we believe in setting the bar high. Endowed chairs and professorships in our academic programs and Museum enable us to attract and retain noted educators, architects, artists and scholars who are passionate about their own creative work and research. These highly talented professionals are equally dedicated to inspiring and educating our students to do the same.
In addition, we want to add distinguished leaders who will continually seek new ways to take our students, our programs and our college in exciting directions. Funding priorities include:
- Endowed Chair in Critical Theory in Art
- Endowed Chair in Architecture
- Endowed Chair in Theatre
- Endowed Chair in Dance
- Endowed Chairs for Principal Instruments in the School of Music
- Endowed Chair in Composition or in Music History
- Endowed Director of Bands/Endowed Fund for Band Operations
At the Contemporary Art Museum, endowed positions will enable us to focus on creating dynamic exhibitions that address critical issues. These positions will also serve to promote museum programs within the community and encourage new visitors and patrons. Funding priorities include:
- Endowed Curator Chair for the Contemporary Arts
- Endowed Museum Educator
Expanding the Experience: Academic Enhancements
Why are talented students drawn to our college? They come to explore, to be innovative, to become engaged and to find their passion.
We believe that an exceptional education includes opportunities that build on a foundation of traditional classroom and studio learning. Integrating artists, designers, architects and scholars-in-residence into the academic experience offers students opportunities to learn from acclaimed professionals. Study abroad programs and other international educational and performance experiences help expand students’ horizons and broaden their global perspectives.
In the College of The Arts, students also learn by doing—and we offer hundreds of opportunities each semester, in every discipline, whether on stage, at an exhibition, in a concert hall or at an architecture charrette.
One of our most recognized performance groups is the 320-member Herd of Thunder Marching Band, which performs at USF football games. Our athletic band program also features a pep band for basketball games and other events, a show band for USF presidential functions, an indoor percussion ensemble, color guard and winter guard.
Maintaining these highly visible teams of musical performers requires upgrades for instruments, uniforms, guest clinicians, travel expenses and more.
Technological upgrades also play an increasing role in providing effective distance learning opportunities through online courses and electronic broadcasts/webcasts of our students’ performances and exhibitions from anywhere in the world. Funding priorities include:
- Artist-in-Residence
- Ensemble-in-Residence
- Named Guest Artist Series
- Visiting Professors
- Study Abroad Programs
- Band Program Enhancements
- Innovative Technology
- Exhibitions, Dance Concerts and Performances in Music and Theatre
- Architecture Design-Build Projects
Supporting the Experience
Artists deserve to work in a space befitting their talent and dedication. Our new state-of-the-art 104,000 square foot teaching facility for the School of Music will enhance our reputation as a leader in music education and performance. This facility will become Tampa Bay’s first-choice venue for arts and culture, through its combined performance halls, teaching rooms and rehearsal spaces that meet superb acoustical and technological standards.
It will attract top students and faculty who expect the finest facilities and will increase our outreach to highly regarded groups as well as young musicians through band camps and other innovative community education programs.
For those who want to play a visible role in changing the musical landscape at the college and throughout the region, naming opportunities include:
- 500-seat Main Recital Hall
- 100-seat Recital Hall
- Rehearsal—Ensemble—Practice Spaces
- Classrooms—Laboratories—Studios
Future building plans include the Center for Advanced Study of the Visual Arts, which will feature a new facility for students in the master of fine arts degree program, an expansion of the Contemporary Art Museum, an architecture facility and design space, and a new home for the internationally acclaimed Graphicstudio.
Contact the College of The Arts to invest in the future of USF’s nationally recognized arts program.
