Achievements in the Arts at UW-Parkside:
Exceptional Arts Programs for Campus & Community

The Fine Arts departments at UW-Parkside have received numerous local, regional, national, and international recognitions for their outstanding educational and artistic programs, presentations and exhibitions. Here's a sampling of the distinctive features and achievements of our exceptional fine arts programs:

Art Department

 

 

The Art Department offers two majors, a B.A. in Art and a B.A. in Digital Art, and is the only school in the UW-System with this innovative technology-focused major. The Art Department offers seven concentrations in studio arts: ceramics, crafts, drawing, interdisciplinary, painting, printmaking, sculpture, and art education. Four high-tech concentrations options are offered in digital arts, including 2D and 3D animation, illustration, graphic design, and web design to meet the growing regional demands for jobs in these fields.

The Arts Department boasts 225 declared majors and is the largest department in the College of Arts and Sciences, experiencing an incredible 225% growth in majors in the last five years. The success and growth of our Art Department in recent years can be attributed to an exceptional faculty of artist/educators who have developed and offer high-quality, high-demand arts programs.

The department organizes and hosts the the biennial public and private high school art teacher exhibition for area teachers, as well as the biennial high school art exhibition of area public and private high school art students. This reflects that department's ongoing commitment to connect to PK-12 arts education, as well as arts education and training for community members of all ages.

The Gallery Series offers more than a dozen diverse professional and student exhibitions a year in the Art Gallery, and will more than double the number of shows when the new professional gallery opens in 2011. The department has also hosted the National Small Print Show for almost four decades, an exhibit that has gained national and international recognition.

In collaboration with the Center for Community Partnerships, the Art Department provides a variety of arts mini-courses for residents and organizations in the region who wish to explore and enhance their own artistic talents and techniques. The department works closely with Center for Community Partnerships to match specific community needs with classroom projects in web design and graphic design needs, as well as facilitating student internships with various schools, organizations, businesses, and corporations in the region to meet their arts and design needs.

Music Department

 

Our very active and productive Music Department presents over 70 free or low-cost public concerts and recitals on campus, throughout Southeastern Wisconsin, and in national venues each academic year. The department's very popular Wednesday noon concert series occurs weekly during the academic year and provides thousands of campus and community members access to a wide range of classical and contemporary musical performances.

The department offers a wide array of music education outreach activities and performances which touch thousands of children and adults in Southeastern Wisconsin. In addition, the department provide performance opportunities for hundreds of campus and community musicians to perform in the Parkside Mastersingers, Community Band, Parkside Orchestra, and Jazz Band

The Music Department enrolls a total of 90 music majors/minors and over 500 students taking music general education courses each semester. Alumni have gone on to distinguished graduate schools, such the prestigious Eastman and Oberlin Schools of Music. Teacher placement rate for our Music Education graduates is over 95%. Many UW-Parkside music graduates have realized fulfilling career as professional musicians and live and work across the county and globe.

Music Department faculty are active professionals who have performed around the globe and extensively on six continents. UW-Parkside music faculty has won the university's Distinguished Teacher Award several times, as well as numerous awards from regional, state, and national music educator organizations. UW-Parkside is one of only two schools to win top honors in national competition for the performance and promotion of American music sponsored by the American Music Center

Our choral groups, under the direction of Dr. James Kinchen, have twice performed at Carnegie Hall. The growing opera program, under the direction of Prof. Ami Bouterse, has collaborated professional opera companies including Milwaukee Opera Theater. The Choral program performs the complete Handel's Messiah every three years, commissions new works by African-American and other composers, and programs diverse works from many cultures

Each spring the Music Department brings thousands of high school students to campus each year for concerts, festivals, and the Wisconsin School Music Association Solo and Ensemble Competition. This statewide competition showcases the finest high school musicians in the state and provides them with incredible opportunities to explore and enhance their skills and talents as musicians.

Theatre Arts Department

The Theatre Arts Department is the recipient of the UW Regents Award for Teaching Excellence and outstanding academic programming, the first fine arts program in the University of Wisconsin system to ever win this coveted award for teaching and academic distinction. This teaching excellence award is a reflection of the departments high academic and artistic standards and accomplishments.

The department produces a broad range of over 30 high-quality theatrical productions annually, including numerous fully-produced productions per year, a FreshINK series bringing recent, cutting-edge plays to our audience and student produced productions, class projects, and outreach through performance to other on-campus organizations

The department has received over 100 Regional Awards of Merit in acting, directing, design, stage management, and playwriting from Kennedy Center American College Theatre (KCACTF) in the past 10 years, making UW-Parkside one of the most acclaimed programs in the region. Each year UW-Parkside students, faculty, and staff attend and compete in the KCACTF regional festival.

The Theatre Arts Department has developed extensive professional theatre connections including partnerships with such acclaimed regional theaters as the Milwaukee Repertory, American Players Theatre, the Fireside Theatre, Great River Shakespeare Festival, and the Milwaukee Chamber Theatre. Most UW-Parkside theatre students have the opportunity to achieve internships, apprenticeships, or paid positions with these professional theatre companies prior to their graduation.

The Department is the only theater program in the Midwest to feature a professional "company-based training approach" capped at 65 total majors which insures personalized training within a creative and collaborative professional learning environment. We don't want the most students; we want the best.

UW-Parkside is one of the few schools in the upper Midwest to offer a comprehensive liberal arts education and a variety of BFA-level training degrees with concentrations in the areas of Acting, Design and Technology, Direction and Management, and Theatre Education.

The department is proud of its very high rate of student success and satisfaction, with 92% of graduates in the past five years finding employment in theatre related fields or admission to graduate programs in theater at such prestigious schools as New York University, The University of Illinois, The University of Washington, and Ohio University.