The mission of the Visual and Public Art (VPA) Department is to provide students with a lifelong set of skills that synthesize studio and community arts approaches to artistic production, exhibition, and education. Both individual and collaborative art method-ologies are used in the VPA department’s integrated emphasis through coursework in painting and murals; sculpture, installation and performance art; arts education and museum studies, photography, and media culture.

 

Combining theory with practice, the program pedagogies focus upon historical and contemporary analysis,community colla-boration, artistic production, evaluation and distribution of work with an emphasis on applied research, technical competency, and self-expression. The VPA major equips students with skills of art making, ethical inquiry, self-reflection, visual literacy, empathy and reciprocal community engagement to address the critical issues of aesthetics, social justice and cross-cultural competencies in a multicultural and increasingly interconnected global society.

​

VPA’s alignment with the principles, goals, core values, and ideals described in the CSUMB Vision Statement are evident in its delivery of a high quality education that serves the diverse people of California, especially the working class, historically undereducated, and low-income

populations. The VPA program is committed to multilingual, multicultural, gender-equitable learning, using a curriculum that is student-centered and society serving which focuses on regional needs, specifically those involving both inner-city and isolated rural populations, to meet the needs relevant to communities in the immediate Tri-County region (Monterey, Santa Cruz, and San

Benito).  Link to VPA's Major Learning Outcomes (MLO's).

​

OUR PEDAGOGIC APPROACH

​

​