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.    seek students with artistic ability and a mature commitment to
       serious study and self-development.

2.    teach with an emphasis on advanced conceptual ability; knowledge
       of the relevant history and traditions of the field; awareness of the
       current context of production; and development of technical skill,
       using a hands-on approach wherever possible.

3.    encourage risk-taking and the pursuit of the highest artistic, ethical,
       and professional standards.
 
4.    employ intensive classroom work leading to personal growth,
       professional development, and the strengthening of the student's 
       voice.

5.    emphasize collaboration.

6.    prepare students at the master's-degree level, and in graduate
       certificate programs to make a significant contributions to their
       chosen fields.