De a n Ken Goldstein

For over 40 years, The School of Contemporary Arts has been an interdisciplinary arts program committed to providing students with an outstanding education in the visual, performing, and communication arts with a strong emphasis on the Ramapo College pillars: interdisciplinary curriculum, international education, intercultural understanding and experiential learning opportunities. The School, which is inherently interdisciplinary in its structure and its goals, recognizes the interconnectedness of the arts in contemporary society, and encourages students to develop and communicate ideas in multiple media. Excellent instruction in the visual, communication, theatrical, and musical arts takes place in small studio, lab, seminar, and discussion settings, as well as through activities outside the classroom environment. Practical experience, public presentation, and reflection are integrated into the educational process in many ways, such as through required Internships, theater production, musical performance and recording, visual arts production and exhibition, and the production and viewing of video, film, and design.

The School’s faculty are dedicated teachers, nationally known for their artistic and professional achievements and scholarly work. In addition to the full-time faculty, the school attracts many working artists and media professionals to teach as adjunct faculty, serve as

The School of Contemporary Arts offers five majors: Communication Arts (with concentrations in Digital Filmmaking, Global Communication and Media, Journalism, Visual Communication Design, and Writing), Music (with concentrations in: Music Industry, Music Performance, Music Production, and Music Studies), Theater (with concentrations in: Acting, Directing/Stage Management, Design/ Technical Theater, and Theater Studies), Visual Arts (with concentrations in: Art History, Drawing and Painting, Sculpture, Electronic Art and Animation, and Photography), and Contemporary Arts Contract Major (an interdisciplinary major that enables students to develop individualized programs that correspond to their special interests and career goals).

The School is housed in the Angelica and Russ Berrie Center for Performing and Visual Arts, featuring theater, music, and visual arts spaces, and in C and H buildings, which provide a television studio and the Les Paul recording studio, digital imaging and writing labs, an editing lab, a field production classroom, and private editing suites. Additionally, the School occupies a free-standing sculpture studio complex. Students benefit from the professional performing arts programming on campus which includes music, dance, and theater performances in the Sharp Theater, and from the visual arts exhibitions in the college Art Galleries, which focus on contemporary art in changing exhibitions, and which feature one of the foremost collections of works from the Americas and the Caribbean in the permanent collection. Additionally, students participate across campus in extracurricular activities including those connected to specific CA Programs.

The curriculum across CA emphasizes an understanding of the traditions of the past while exploring new means of storytelling, expression, media, and communication. Students are encouraged to move freely across the disciplines of the school to more fully experience the creative process and to build upon knowledge gained in areas outside their majors. And, of course, students take full advantage of the campus’s proximity to New York City with its unlimited opportunities in the arts and media.