Art & Design Degree Programs
To learn more about our degree programs, please follow the links below.
Art Education | Studio Art | Pre-Architecture | Pre-Art Therapy

Art Education / Bachelor of Fine Arts
Art Education Courses

When you study art education at Adrian College, you also teach art. Every summer, art education majors design and implement the youth art program, which exposes local K-12 students to high-quality visual arts programming. You and your peers will experience a range of real-world issues: curriculum design, budgeting, classroom management, developmental issues, working with students with special needs, and finding scholarship and grant programs for students who cannot afford to participate. Through activities like "Me and My Pet," "Multicultural Me," and a story illustration project, you'll touch children with art.

Adrian art education instructors are experienced and practicing teachers who bring actual experiences into the art classroom. Instructor Debra Irvine has ten years of teaching experience at the elementary and secondary school levels.

Studio Art / Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Fine Arts top
Studio Art Courses

AC's art professors practicing artists who bring professional experience into the classroom. Professor Pi Benio has exhibited her work in Michigan, Iowa, New York, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana, and was awarded artist's residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Women's Studio Workshop in New York, and Oxbow in Saugatuck, Michigan. Professor Cathie Royer's paintings have been shown in Montana, North Carolina, Indiana, Louisiana, and Ohio.

Each professor has developed his or her own artistic visions-whether it's Brian Steele's use of electronic art to grapple with drastic changes of place, or Niki Havekost's physical relationship with her print-making. However, their real passion is teaching. They understand the power and importance of art, and as a result, have crucial insight into the role art can play in your development as a person.

The studio art program will offer you a foundation in artistic production and visual thinking, and you'll be challenged to develop your own expressive language. You may choose to study a variety of two-dimensional and three-dimensional media, including painting, printmaking, ceramics, fibers, photo, electronic art, or sculpture.

You'll also benefit from our guest artist program. Regional and national guests artists are invited to exhibit in the department's Stubnitz Gallery in Downs Hall. You'll have the opportunity to attend artists' talks, gallery openings, and to meet and learn from working studio artists. You may also take day trips with ACAC (Adrian College Art Club) to the Detroit Institute of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, or the Chicago Art Institute.

Pre-architecture Program top

Adrian College offers a dual degree program with Washington University in St. Louis. You'll spend three years at Adrian for basic studies in design science, mathematics, and liberal arts followed by one year at Washington for specialized study in architecture. By starting your program at AC, you'll have the advantage of a liberal arts education, including communication and critical thinking skills, so you'll be well prepared to enter the last year of architecture school. Once you have completed your bachelor's degree at Washington University, it is possible to remain there in the Masters of Architecture program. Pre-architecture students generally major in studio art or interior design.

Pre-art Therapy Program top

How can the powerful tool of art be used to help people understand themselves and the world better? Professor Liz Hartz will help you learn how. Not only has she worked with Hospice, but she also works with youth at the Adrian Training School, one of the many places where you might intern. Internships are an important part of the program, because that is where you'll learn how to apply what you've learned about the main fields of art-painting, ceramics, and drawing-to actual situations. You will develop a sophisticated portfolio that demonstrates your mastery of imagery-a mastery that will one day allow you to decipher the imagery of the people you work with.

The flexibility of the pre-art therapy program provides you with many options. You can major in art and minor in psychology, or major in psychology and minor in art. You can also major in art and human services. Adrian students have a 100 percent acceptance rate at Wayne State University, and have attended The University of Louisville, and New York University.