Dean's Message

I am so glad that we can bring this Commencement Special edition though sad about the circumstances that surround it.  There will be an on-line virtual commencement ceremony, but it will be abbreviated and will not include a lot of the things we include during our normal commencement. This is not the ideal, but it does not change one bit the pride and joy we feel to celebrate your achievements.   

The College of the Arts has many diverse programs including architecture, interior design, industrial design, visual arts, theatre, dance, and music. We in the arts are always on the leading edge of change or transformation and therefore, the future.  So, the challenge I give you is to stay focused on the future.  It is your destiny to be out front.  We are all proud of your accomplishments but keep going.  Keep innovating and be the leader of our future.   

Your faculty and I feel privileged to have been able to work with you for the last several years.  We need great architects and interior designers that help us design the places in which we live, work, worship, and recreate; we need great industrial designers to design creative products that have lasting value;  we need great artists of all kinds; designers, musicians, actors, dancers and visual artists to entertain us but also to help us see deep within ourselves and help us envision our future.  We will always need the creative people you have become.   

I want to thank our talented faculty for their work teaching and guiding you.  I also want to celebrate your parents, spouses and life partners.  They all helped you in many ways get to where you are now. 

But as we celebrate your graduation, I want to ask you to lean into your future and trust in yourself and the skills you have acquired during the last several years.  You’ll need to continue to learn and adapt to an ever-changing future.  You can lead the way to a transformation not only in your own life but in the lives in those around you.  Good luck and god speed. 

All the best,  

Gordon Brooks, Dean, College of the Arts