SLU Department of Visual and Performing Arts
Saint Louis University's Department of Visual and Performing Arts is made up of four programs: art history, music, studio art, and theatre and dance. Each SLU program emphasizes a different discipline, but all encourage reflection on the world around us through art. Our classes and arts experiences offer an excellent opportunity to study humanity, aesthetics and culture through theory and practice.
Visual and Performing Arts Programs
Art History
SLU's art history program examines the significance of art across cultures and throughout history, with a critical eye on the contexts in which it was created.
- Bachelor of Arts in Art History
- Minor in Art History
Music
SLU's music program allows you to master your musical talents while working under the close tutelage of a faculty of professional musicians.
- Bachelor of Arts in Music
- Minor in Music
Studio Art
SLU's studio art program teaches you to see and think like a visual artist, utilizing many media to express your ideas.
- Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art
- Minor in Studio Art
- Visual Communication Minor
Theatre and Dance
SLU's theatre and dance program collaborates as a performance company, fostering commitment to the group while strengthening your abilities in performance, design, direction and management. The dance minor investigates the expressive potential of dance as its own art form, in other fields, or in personal practice.
- Bachelor of Arts in Theatre
- Minor in Theatre
- Minor in Dance
Chair's Message
Greetings!
I am writing as the chair of the Department of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) at Saint Louis University (SLU) to say welcome to our web pages about our four programs of Art History, Music, Studio Art, and Theatre and Dance. After a few challenging years due to the pandemic, we are thriving in our creative and research endeavors. Now, more pointedly than ever, we provide our campus with essential artistic resources and outlets to explore how the arts can be a tool for expression and discovery in our lives and communities.
One thing that has solidified for us in VPA is our renewed appreciation for the value of face-to-face interactions as the arts are meant to be shared and help us communicate with those around us. VPA has always had close faculty-to-student connections in our classes, studios, ensembles and productions. As many majors and minors have expressed to me, those bonds are very special in the formulation of their skills and their academic grounding for their futures.
The VPA faculty help guide our majors and minors to experiment as they prepare for their next steps, whether that be the first job in their careers or advanced study in graduate school. For instance, we have career preparation courses to set up a resume, write a cover letter, or draft an artist’s statement. I am regularly amazed at the wonderful experiences that our undergraduates find in the vibrant arts community of St. Louis and beyond. From researching labels in SLU’s Museum of Art to running lights at the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival to preparing promotional materials for the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, we encourage such internships and offer credit for that work.
SLU boasts myriad ways to bring creativity to life. Students can throw clay on a wheel, play music in an ensemble, present in a symposium, act in a play, apply paint to canvas, choreograph a dance, brainstorm about logos, capture a moment on camera, construct a costume, explore artworks in a museum, or make computer art. Our liberal arts university provides an uncommon option for arts majors and minors — as well as those looking for new artistic ventures through the Core Curriculum or general electives — to stretch their creativity through VPA.
I invite you to read about our department’s revised mission to serve as a dynamic center for teaching, creating, and researching in the arts at Saint Louis University with emphases on creativity, exploration and community. We aim to have our department be a place where each individual can find a sense of belonging and acceptance for their own identity, striving together toward greater equity, inclusivity, and social justice in concert with the mission of our university. We look forward to seeing you on campus!
All good wishes,
Cathleen A. Fleck, Ph.D.
Chair, Visual and Performing Arts
Mission Statement
Who Are We?
The Department of Visual and Performing Arts serves as a dynamic center for teaching, creating, and researching in the arts at Saint Louis University.
The Department of Visual and Performing Arts is an integral part of our Jesuit Catholic university, whose mission “encourages and supports innovative scholarship and effective teaching in all fields of the arts.” We, the faculty, actively engage with that mission as creative artists, committed educators, curious learners, and dynamic scholars who are innovators, storytellers, performers, experimenters, researchers, writers, craftspersons, builders, inventors, and collaborators.
Above all, SLU students are the heart of our work together as the center of the arts at SLU. Our department comprises four distinct programs — Art History, Music, Studio Art, and Theatre & Dance — that allow students to forge their diverse paths in this world with their own approach to the arts. Our students also regularly explore our liberal arts university’s numerous other majors and minors and find connections to the arts across many academic disciplines.
SLU endorses the arts visibly on our campus through its several arts-dedicated spaces, including a student art gallery, two performance theatres, and three campus art museums. Students also gain from our urban location in the vibrant center of St. Louis with two public art museums, four theatres, several art galleries, and one concert hall all within a few blocks of campus.
What Do We Value and Why Are We Here?
Importantly, we are a value-driven department. To know our values is to understand what motivates our faculty and defines our students. Our primary values — and how we express them — include:
Creativity
- Creating art, dance, music, theatre, and scholarship that reflects the human condition
- Embracing the arts as an outlet for expression and discovery
- Promoting innovation and its challenges, successes, and failures
Exploration
- Guiding exploration of the intellectual and creative potential through the arts
- Pursuing knowledge in constant investigation leading to lifelong learning
- Offering tools to develop authentic voices and agency through the arts
Community
- Cultivating community and collaboration with local, national, and international partners through the study and practice of the arts
- Supporting diverse identities, learners, and creators in an inclusive, supportive environment
- Seeking equitable, anti-racist, and anti-ableist policies, procedures, and curricula
What Is Our Vision For The Future?
We envision moving towards the following goals through creation and exploration of the arts in community with our arts colleagues on the SLU-Madrid campus:
- Expanding opportunities in the arts for SLU students, faculty, and staff
- Developing a greater public profile for the Department of Visual and Performing Arts at SLU and beyond
- Striving together toward greater equity, inclusivity, and social justice
Visual and Performing Arts at SLU
20
full-time faculty members
30
adjunct faculty members
4
annual art exhibits
4
annual main stage productions
