Changing the Conversation: The Relevancy of Arts Thinking for 21st-Century Students

The art department at Furman University houses both art history and studio majors, within the larger community of a liberal arts school. Mindful of the institutional challenges faced by many of our colleagues, along with the pressures our students feel to choose majors that have direct career tracks, we have reconsidered our mission. This has been undertaken to better articulate the skills and competencies that are developed through the arts while taking care not to reduce our majors to merely service other departments. Since many of our students do not come to Furman specifically to study art and many of our majors do not plan to become professional fine artists, we have reconsidered of the role, function, and purpose of our curriculum. This paper would share the process and outcome of our new approach, one that emphasizes critical thinking and problem solving as the primary outcomes for studio majors, deemphasizing product to focus more on process. We will also share how we have defined and articulated the general career competencies that are developed through art and art history, including visual literacy. We believe these changes are shifting the conversation to engage with the entrepreneurial skills and innovation mindset that our students will need for the post-graduate success while creating new relevancy for arts education that is visible to students, parents, alumni, and administration.