The Department of Art and Art History offers courses of instruction in the studio arts, history of art and art education. Students may elect majors or minors in studio art and art history. Studio courses (in drawing, painting, ceramics, sculpture, photography, video and digital art) stress the fundamentals of visual communication and help students cultivate the technical skills necessary for the effective expression of their ideas in a given medium.?

Students are encouraged to look at art in an active and engaged way and to think critically about the meaning of art and visual culture in the contemporary world. Both programs, studio and art history, prepare students for graduate programs or entry into a wide variety of professional careers in the arts. Studio majors in the department have gone on to successful careers as practicing artists, commercial illustrators and art educators; those with majors in art history have become art critics, art historians, museum or gallery professionals or arts administrators. Every year, in addition to the usual courses of study, the art and art history department sponsors a number of cultural events that connect the department to the campus at large.

?The Art Center's three large gallery spaces provide a changing schedule of 10-12 exhibitions annually; visiting artists, critics and historians present their own work and meet with students for critiques and discussions; department faculty and students get together for group critiques and the annual major-minor mixer, and the department sponsors a popular bus trip each semester to visit museums and galleries in Chicago, St. Louis, or Cincinnati.