College of Creative Arts Overview

Hello prospective students and families. Thank you so much for taking the time to tune in today and learn a little bit about the College of Creative Arts. My name is Liz Mullenix, and I'm the dean of the College of Creative Arts. And if we were here together today, we would be sitting in our super cool Hiestand Art Gallery, where there are multiple exhibitions every year by both professional artists and by students. I love talking to students in this space amongst real challenging, provocative, beautiful pieces of art. But I will leave that up to your imagination. You guys are all creative, young people.

Before I begin talking about our departments and our programs, specifically, I just wanted to give a little overview of the college in relation to the larger university and talk a little bit about what I call the Miami difference. So Miami is divided into five academic colleges, the College of Arts and Science, the College of Education, the College of Engineering and Computing, and the College of Business in addition to the College of Creative Arts. And within the College of creative arts. We have five academic departments that I'm going to discuss in a minute. But at Miami, we're not an art school, like RISD or SCAD, or DAP in Cincinnati, and we're not a conservatory program like CCM or Juilliard. We do have, however, the same degree programs as art schools and conservatories. So we have professional degrees such as the BFA and Bachelor of Music, the BM, and the majority of our programs are nationally accredited. The Miami difference is that students can study the arts within a liberal arts setting. And what this means is that they can complete the same degree as they would at a conservatory or an art school, but also double major in something like pre-med or business. There's a great example of this that I love to share, which is from a student of mine from the theatre department a couple of years ago, and this student was a double major in theater and also in physics. She went to New York City to become a professional actress, but because of her physics major, she also took the MCAT. So if she had gone to a conservatory program, I don't think that she necessarily would have been eligible for medical school when she graduated from college.

Now I'm going to go on and give an overview of our departments. Within the College of Creative Arts, we have five departments. We have a Department of Architecture and Interior Design. We have a Department of Art, which houses five different majors in art history, communication design, which is sometimes also called graphic design, studio art, art education and fashion. We are really excited about a brand new department within the College of Creative Arts called the Department of Emerging Technology in Business and Design, also referred to sometimes as interactive media studies. You'll see that later in our video at the end of this slideshow. In this department students study things like augmented reality, digital media marketing, user experience, e-Sports, game design, and entertainment design. This department is truly interdisciplinary, bringing together design, entrepreneurship, and computer science under one roof.

Our Department of Music has degrees in music performance and music education, emphasizing both singing, the vocal arts, as well as instrumental. And we have department of theater, and the theater department houses minors in musical theater and in dance.

At Miami we also have several co-majors. A co-major is a program that has more credit hours than a minor, but less than a major. Many students will add a co-major to their primary major. And in the College of Creative Arts, we have co majors in fashion, art therapy, and arts management. And we're really excited that we're about to launch an entire major in arts business.

This slide just lists a lot of our different minors in the College of Creative Arts. And like I mentioned before, students will often have a major, a co-major, and a minor, double major and a minor. Students in the College of Creative Arts love to double major. Over 40% of our students have a second major or a minor or both. This is a list of some of the most recent programs or majors that have been coupled with our majors in the College of Creative Arts.

The College of creative arts is also home to the Miami University Art Museum. And this is very special because this is an accredited art museum. It is accredited by the American Association of museums, which also accredits the MoMA, the Getty, the Smithsonian, really the great museums of our nation. So this is very unusual for a college art museum. We are really proud of this wonderful museum, which features over 17,000 pieces of art, including works by famous artists such as Picasso and Warhol. And so for students interested in visual art, this is an amazing asset to their college education.

The Performing Arts Series is also a part of the College of Creative Arts. And through our Performing Arts Series, we bring incredible artists to campus like Wayne Brady, Aziz Ansari, John Malaney and the Second City improv troupe. I personally love classical music and jazz, so I was really excited when we housed, or when we hosted the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, as well as Wynton Marsalis.

Oxford might seem like a small Midwestern college town, but we sure do bring the best to campus and we get students off campus as well, as part of our many study away programs and study abroad programs. Students can go for a summer, a month in January during our winter term, or an entire semester. Studying subjects that applied directly to their major, or studying things that might provide credits towards their general education requirements at Miami. I highly recommend our campus in Luxembourg, which is a Miami campus right there in the heart of Western Europe. It's just wonderful.

The final thing that I want to tell you all about today is our wonderful career readiness program. A large aspect of my job as the dean is to meet with alumni all over the nation. And I'm here to tell you that they are very, very successful people. They are leading major cultural institutions, they have their own design firms, and they're making movies in Hollywood. This is why we have banned the common term "starving artists" from the College of Creative Arts. And we only talk about thriving artists and innovators and we've thus branded our 360 career readiness program #Thriving Artists.

The college has its own career counselor. This is a staff member who works just with our students in the College of Creative Arts, and begins helping you plan from day one. We have sessions both within and outside of class that specifically relate to careers in the arts. We bring in successful alumni to meet with students. We coordinate internships and organized trips to cities to do a deep dive into careers within the arts and innovative tech fields. And we also have an amazing program for graduates in New York and LA called the #Thriving Artists Network. 100 successful alum in each of these cities have agreed to be part of a mentorship program. For students who graduate and move to these cities, students will receive a mentor upon graduation, who will review their resume, help you with contacts, practice interviewing skills, etc. We want to make sure we support our students from the moment they arrive on campus, and even after they leave. And because of this, we have an excellent track record. As we are proud that a high percentage of our students are employed within the orbit of their subject area within a year of graduation.

And finally, we would like to share a video which provides you some footage of our students in action. And I ask your patience as I transition here to our YouTube video.

The love of the arts opens you up to different ways of thinking. I feel it's our obligation to provide that environment to explore different paths to foster creative growth and students and find out what it is they really like to do.

I play the cello because it's the one thing that I can always rely on.

Why do things that excite them that talk about their world and to help the students at large think about their own discipline in a different way through the arts.

I really like that collaborative and integrated approach. You got to really hear about a combination of ideas.

Because we're in the liberal arts institution, our students are able to reach out to lots of other disciplines and partner with them.

Interactive media studies allows you to apply interactive media across any discipline.

And I think they become braver and what they're able to produce.

The professors here really make it worth it.

The faculty is in the trenches working with the students one on one.

Being able to have a relationship with our teachers and professors that are also professionals in the field is invaluable.

I'm in the workshop with the students. I work side by side. What I make, they see.

What these professors here have given me I want to give to someone else. I want to give them the inspiration to go out and create art and make a difference, also.

In our trip to Ghana, I was able to directly design for the needs of people that were totally different for me. To be able to work alongside Ghanaian masons, it was completely transforming for me as a person and as a designer.

You have all these creative minds come together. They're all bouncing ideas off each other, you're able to collaborate.

I get to be a part of something that wants to stand out. Yeah, I'm in the theater department. You should come with us.

Performing at Carnegie Hall, performing in the presidential inauguration, really is a signal that we aspire to do the greatest things available for our students.

Miami students take themselves very seriously. And that comes out in the types of jobs that we get from graduating.

We're problem solvers. We're entrepreneurs.

To be that solution that no one else has thought of before it takes a creative spirit.

The most rewarding students I've taught are those that pursued a path that they didn't think they were going to pursue.

Going to college is less about the degree that you get and more experiences that got you that degree.

When I'm not here anymore, and I graduate and someone says, "Where did you go for undergrad?" I can say my university proudly.

Thank you so much for tuning in today. And for your interest in the College of Creative Arts.