Our Mission and Core Values

Our Mission

The Art Department at Elon University empowers students to reach their full potential as makers, thinkers, and global citizens. As accomplished artists and scholars, we are deeply committed to student learning, mentorship, and growth. Our curriculum engages the historical and contemporary dimensions of art, emphasizing its potential for critical inquiry and creative transformation. Through hands-on studio practice and inclusive, interdisciplinary learning, students gain the technical skills, conceptual tools, and professional experiences needed to navigate and shape a diverse and complex world. Curiosity, material exploration, civic engagement, and critical thinking are hallmarks of our approach across all studio disciplines—Ceramics, Drawing, Painting, Photography, Intermedia and Digital Arts.

Our Core Values: the “5 Cs”

Grounded in studio practice and creative inquiry, the Art Department adapts the “4 Cs” of 21st-century learning through the lens of artistic practice, adding ‘community’ as a foundational force. Together, these five values guide how we teach, mentor, collaborate, and make art with imagination and ethical care.

Creativity	Community	Critical Thinking	Communication	Collaboration
We value creativity as essential to artistic practice and human expression, emphasizing curiosity, experimentation, and imaginative risk-taking.	We value an enriching, inclusive, and supportive studio community grounded in mentorship, shared making, and sustained relationships.	We value critical thinking as an embodied and reflective practice rooted in interpretation, contextual awareness, and the shaping of meaning.	We value communication as a core artistic practice through which students develop confidence, visual literacy, and a distinctive artistic voice.	We value collaboration as a creative and civic practice grounded in shared responsibility, collegiality, and respect for diverse perspectives.