Graduate Education Mission

Columbia's graduate programs aim to prepare artists, professionals, and skilled practitioners for excellence and leadership in a variety of fields including the arts, both fine and practical; the business of the arts; and the application of the arts to healing, to the needs of an engaged community, and to creative teaching. We aim to change lives, not merely to add knowledge and skill. To these ends, we:

1. selectively admit students with artistic ability and a capacity for action that can be engaged to develop the abilities and dispositions of an experienced professional;
2. selectively admit students with a mature commitment to serious study and self-development;
3. selectively admit students dedicated to reshaping themselves, our environment, our society, our culture, and their art forms or professions;
4. selectively admit students capable of risk-taking and the pursuit of the highest artistic, ethical, and professional standards;
5. teach with an emphasis on the development of advanced conceptual ability grounded in knowledge of the relevant history and traditions of the field, in awareness of the current context of action and production in that field, and in technical skill, using a hands-on approach wherever possible;
6. employ intensive classroom work leading to personal growth, professional development, and the strengthening of the student's voice, and, where appropriate, emphasize collaboration in groups coupled with individuating experiences;
7. provide a challenging and intense atmosphere with small class sizes for focused, in-depth learning by adults; and
8. ultimately aim to prepare students at the master's-degree level, and in graduate certificate programs, who will make a significant contribution to their chosen professions.