Two ballet dancers on stage performing

Being a student of fine arts means heightening your physical, intellectual, and cultural awareness. UNLV’s fine arts program prepares students for professional careers by helping them to apply their talents in innovative and creative contexts. Campus venues, including theatres, performance halls, studios and an architectural library, are available to students as they pursue their passions. Our artist-in-residence program brings preeminent thought leaders to UNLV. These artists work with students in class and often participate in experiential projects. The College of Fine Arts offers many public performances, exhibitions, and lectures per week during the academic year. These events vary from professional presentations from world-renowned artists to concerts presented by faculty and students, lectures offered by distinguished artists/writers/critics, exhibitions of student work in galleries, and the prestigious UNLV Film Series.

College Highlights

The College of Fine Arts offers an average of 4.4 public performances and exhibitions per week during the academic year. These events vary from professional presentations such as the New York Philharmonic and American Ballet Theatre to concerts presented by faculty and students, lectures offered by distinguished artists/writers/critics such as Seamus Heaney, exhibitions of student work in galleries and the UNLV Film Series.

Sam Jimenez, art, senior, working on lithography prints. (Josh Hawkins/UNLV Photo Services)

Mission

The College of Fine Arts educates, empowers, and engages creative people to become visionary change-makers in the arts through acts of imagination. At UNLV we believe the arts are an essential good for society. We make education relevant and accessible through our programs and outreach. We create new knowledge in the arts. We celebrate independent thought and the power of bringing people together to foster creativity. And, we value:

  • Difference
  • Kindness
  • Discovery
  • Inclusion
  • Empathy
  • Joy
  • A spirit of generosity

These values underpin all our efforts and guide us in fulfilling our mission.

How We Measure Success

We measure achievement of our mission through:

● Student success that outpaces our peer programs and institutions in recruitment, retention, graduation and community impact
● Creativity, scholarship and learning accomplished by our students, alumni and faculty whose impact is visionary and positive
● Success in hiring and retaining nationally and internationally renowned faculty
● Collaboration amongst our faculty, across our diverse programs, throughout UNLV and with the diverse communities we serve in Las Vegas and globally
● Recognition within the UNLV community and beyond for our efficacy, passion, principle, compassion and joy

CFA Around the world

The College of Fine Arts Around the World initiative is a powerful example of the way in which the CFA embeds and integrates global experiences into the education we offer to students. This is no ordinary travel abroad program, but rather it provides a robust opportunity for students to make original art and perform throughout the world to better understand it. Through this experiential learning, students develop agency and an inventive spirit. These characteristics are paramount to an artist's 21st century career success. After all, we are preparing students for careers for the years to come -- those that don't even exist yet! Emerging artists need to be ready to embrace whatever the future holds for them.

film logo with campus background

"The passion and inclusivity displayed by the professors and faculty of the film department have always made me feel very welcome. Every time I pass a familiar face in the halls or bump into someone on a set, there is always a warm smile and a kind, 'hello!'"

-Ian Watson, Film

people performing in a museum

We wish to acknowledge and honor the Indigenous communities of this region and recognize that the university is situated on the traditional homelands of the Nuwuvi, Southern Paiute People. We offer gratitude for the land itself, for those who have stewarded it for generations, and for the opportunity to study, learn, work, and be in community with this land.

Read More

above drone shot of ham concert hall
Inside of the Barrick Museum exhibition hall filled with paintings on the walls

Our Stories

Alumni Spotlights

Accreditation

School of Architecture

Undergraduate
Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities
Landscape Architectural Accreditation Board (LAAB)
Council for Interior Design Accreditation (CIDA)

Graduate
Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities
National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB)

Department of Art

Undergraduate
Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities
National Association of Schools of Art and Design

Department of Dance

Undergraduate
Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities

Department of Film

Undergraduate
Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities

School of Music

Undergraduate and Graduate
Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities
National Association of Schools of Music

Department of Theatre

Undergraduate
Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities