The Arts at UGA

The fine and performing arts units in the Franklin College - the Lamar Dodd School of Art, the department of dance, the department of theatre and film studies and the Hugh Hodgson School of Music - have long been the heart of the university. Not only do these units provide performance and exhibition opportunities for our students, they are important venues for the cultural life of the campus community and they are visibly engaged in our wider mission: educating a cultivated citizenry for Georgia. These units welcome school children and alumni alike, and quite often for the public, attending a concert or opening is their first experience on campus. So these units are constant ambassadors for UGA. 

But the arts at UGA are represented by far more than these Franklin units. From the Georgia Museum of Art to the Georgia Review and the UGA Press, many UGA Units are engaged in bringing the cultural life of our campus to the community and beyond. The University, under the leadership of Vice Provost Libby Morris, has brought together the leaders of all the arts units to form the UGA Arts Council. The Council is a new conglomeration formed to build support, and audiences, for the arts units on campus. One of the important outcomes of this new collaboration is a new UGA arts website, which is a great all-in-one-place web destination for information on the arts.

The signature event for the Arts at UGA will take place later this fall with the UGA Arts Festival, which will feature many events from Franklin College units and so will receive many pixels in coverage here and elsewhere.

If you look around East campus at the Arts Complex, you can see that the University has never been shy about its support for the arts. This new effort will reinforce that committment to our students and the community, that the arts are intimately tied to who we are and what we do, and that everyone should consider them a very important part of their UGA education.