The Arts Initiative builds upon Stanford's core arts departments and programs: art and art history, creative writing, drama and dance, and music. These serve more than 250 undergraduate majors and minors and well over 100 advanced students in MA, MFA, PhD, and fellowship programs. Stanford seeks to expand the faculty, enhance degree programs, and invigorate artists-in-residence opportunities.

Adding Arts Faculty

The arts departments at Stanford are nationally ranked but generally small in size. Demand for studio courses among undergraduates, including non-arts majors, significantly outpaces what these departments can currently provide. The fundamental training of undergraduate arts majors and graduate arts students can be disrupted by even routine faculty leaves of absence, retirements, or teaching commitments in other departments.

The Arts Initiative seeks support for new faculty positions in these core departments, as well as the creation of new interdisciplinary positions that allow for faculty appointments spanning more than one field.

Adding Graduate Fellowships

Stanford's arts departments maintain prestigious MA and MFA programs, but the students in these programs do not enjoy the fellowship support provided to students in PhD programs. The Arts Initiative seeks to establish a new system of MA/MFA fellowships tied to both financial need and undergraduate mentoring.

Hosting Artists in Residence

The Arts Initiative aims to increase the number of artists in residence on campus, enabling the core arts departments to diversify their faculty. Some visiting artists will be world-renowned, and others will be up-and-coming talents. In addition to bringing their current projects to campus, they will work with teams of faculty and students and mentor individual students.