The vision of the art education programs at Syracuse University is to rethink the relevance of the arts in society in the wake of the Information Age and thus to better facilitate the refinement of insight, discernment, innovation and imagination that stems from a rich education through the arts. Our students learn to cultivate a personal agency as global citizens through acts of arts-based and critical self-refinement. This work empowers our students to be effective participants in the shared social responsibility of community-refinement as we each engage a world of competing visual meanings and ideas.

The arts are more than a collection of images, artifacts, designs and events. The arts are a practical means to better inform ourselves about the things that matter the most to us as a network of societies. The arts enhance human information, refining the cargoes of meaning our collected data carries in tow. Arts-based methodologies effectively inform not because they are beautiful, but are beautiful because they carry a berth for our emotions and enthrall our attention, making them altogether effective at delivering their special cargoes. Beauty, wherever it is attributed, lies in the re-cognition of the data that most directly informs and validates the story of one’s life. The arts are intrinsically memorable, ever renewing our mindfulness of what we hope for, need, feed upon and desire.

Together, the arts work to tell the human story.  We have always understood this: it is why we paint ourselves in visual narratives, sing ourselves in lyric and verse, dramatize ourselves in the round, glorify ourselves in marble and clay, write ourselves into histories and her-stories, dance ourselves into states of oblivion, and dream ourselves in abstracts through the night. As an arts educator, you will learn to open up safe spaces for this ongoing work—collaborating with your students to communicate new tellings in the collective story of manifold individuals, families, nations, civilizations and the life we share together.

Mission Statement

Graduate and undergraduate programs in art education at Syracuse University are geared to accomplish the following purposes:

• to  immerse youngsters in the making and design of the simple symbols, meaningful artifacts, cultural interfaces, and complex information systems that have become critical in the 21st century;

• to develop arts-based and principle-centered curriculum strategies promoting practical outcomes, inclusive learning, and social responsibility;

• to facilitate interdisciplinary and collaborative learning experiences intersecting creative practices, problem-solving across disciplines, community-engaged scholarship, and real-world inquiry models.

Core Values

Graduate and undergraduate programs in art education at Syracuse University are operated in accord with the following core values. Arts and art educational practices are:

• Informational.
Studio arts based methodologies for organizing data about the human experience are systems of information pressed into handmade artifacts, manufactured forms, cultural symbolism, and critical lenses. The visual arts inform human beings of who we are, where we come from, what our purpose is, and where we are going. (Rolling, 2008)

• Educational.
Because the arts are informative, they are also inherently educational, aiding overall academic achievement; basic to higher thinking skills, social skills, multiple literacies, and the motivation to learn; and a natural arena for the integration of knowledge, the inclusion of all learners, and the comprehensive asset-development of school and community. (Arts Ed Partnership, 2006)

• Transformational.
Because the arts are educational, they are also inherently transformative, developing persistent and practice-based habits of innovation, a capacity suggested by educational philosopher John Dewey, one that enables a student to learn from experience in the process of “trying and discovering, modifying and adapting” (Cuffaro, 1995, p. 19).

James Haywood Rolling, Jr., Ed.D.
Chair of Art Education