Dear College of Fine Arts Colleagues:

It is my great pleasure to welcome all of you back to campus for the 2023-24 academic year and a new chapter of life for all of us! This is always a hopeful and meaningful time of new beginnings for our students, faculty and staff. This fall, in particular, the college is approaching the future with significant accomplishments that have taken place over the last few months, as we were immersed in the College of Fine Arts Around the World project, with faculty and students working together to make art in different locations around the globe. The goal of this endeavor has been to illuminate what it means to be a global artist-citizen -- as a fundamental part of the education we offer to our students.

One of the undertakings of this ambitious set of engagements was the creation of the CFA Collaborative Laboratory (CoLab), which involved students from all seven of the college’s academic disciplines (performing arts, visual arts, film, architecture, and entertainment engineering and design) in the creation of a completely original work, which was entitled Is it Art?, performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland in August, as the culmination of months of interdisciplinary collaboration. The work received very positive  attention with its five-star review in the newspaper The Scotsman. I mention this project in particular  — among  the dozen exciting opportunities that were available to students over the summer — because the experience of working across disciplines to create knowledge in the arts is an aspirational tenet of the new strategic plan that the college is launching this fall.

Experiencing the synergies across disciplines is, in fact, complementary to the development of strong disciplinary education  — instilling depth and rigor in each of our academic areas. Encouraging students to consider collaboration across the art forms and even outside of the arts — integration with such knowledge sectors as the humanities, sciences, engineering, social sciences and medicine — strengthens disciplinary mastery and helps students in their quest to invent and build notable careers for the future, making meaning and embracing possibility thinking as a way of life.

Let us never waiver from the understanding that the arts are an essential and integrated part of a healthy and vital life for each of us in this world. Our students can be incredibly proud that their work for the future, guided by the exceptional faculty in the  College of Fine Arts, is to build awareness that as artists and thinkers they are fundamental contributors to the health and well-being of society for the long, joyous and fruitful years ahead.

We have an especially important year in front of us, navigating a grand adventure over the next semesters. As we come together to achieve remarkable goals through very hard work, bold and ambitious ideas put into action — and even a bit of calculated risk-taking — I look forward to continuously celebrating the work of the college — with heartfelt gratitude to all of the wonderful colleagues in our college that make the College of Fine Arts and UNLV a place where we reach for the highest aspirations, all with a hopeful spirit and inviolate optimism for all that we can achieve together.

Wishing each of you in the College of Fine Arts an invigorating and fulfilling new academic year!