Visual & Performing Arts

The Department of Visual and Performing Arts endeavors to serve the larger educational mission of the University of Virginia’s College at Wise by designing opportunities to engage fundamental human questions through the unique understandings engendered in artistic expression.

These understandings emerge from a collective imagining of who and what we are by giving form to the experience of being human. It is our conviction that the process and forms of creative expression represent fundamental ways of knowing and constitute the basic human occupation with making meaning. As such, we hold the pursuit of artistic expression as essential to the development of an individual and civilization.

The Department of Visual and Performing Arts offers the Bachelor of Arts degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences with majors minors in Art, Music, and Theater.

The Department offers a wide variety of variety of visual art courses and Bachelor of Arts subjects for all students, regardless of major. These courses include practical/experiential applications like painting, ceramics, drawing, band, choir, acting, and stagecraft. The department  also offers courses in the theoretical/historical study of the arts including art, music, and theater histories, theatrical aesthetics, music theory, etc. All courses offered through the department of visual and performing arts satisfy general education requirements for Arts and/or Humanities credit.