Arts Community

At Chicago, the creative arts and academic inquiry reinforce and enrich one another. Our Humanities Division has a first-class faculty and some of the most prestigious programs in the nation for the academic study of the arts and humanities. In the undergraduate College and in graduate programs in the Humanities, courses are offered in creative writing, theater and performance, studio art, film, and music. Our students and faculty are adept at making connections across texts and disciplines and between theory and practice - they are well equipped to reach over the boundaries that separate media.

The University supports students' co-curricular pursuit of the arts through over 75 student groups on campus. Student arts organizations are burgeoning; they range from the oldest continuous film society in America, Doc Films, and various ethnic dance societies to University Theater and several literary magazines.

The campus is home to distinguished professional arts organizations such as the Smart Museum, Court Theatre, the Oriental Institute Museum, the University of Chicago Presents, and the Renaissance Society. These professional arts institutions enrich the University's research and teaching missions. They are also a crucial component of our bridge-building to the communities we belong to, reaching out to both the South Side neighborhoods nearby and the city of Chicago at large. It is our aspiration to strengthen these bonds as we carve out an ever more prominent place for the arts on our campus.

Updated: September 21, 2007