Liberal Arts

Become a creative powerhouse.

The integration of art and design with liberal arts produces a creatively potent and well-rounded person. Liberal arts courses teach you how to write, research, and think critically -- all abilities you need to enrich your artwork and maximize your career potential.

By immersing yourself in writing, art history, research, and diverse cultures, you'll be able tell your story and start transforming the world into a better place. Throughout your time at CCAD, you'll take liberal arts courses in subjects like African American literature, the history of animation, biodiversity, and screenwriting. You can take those interests further by adding a liberal arts minor to your degree.

Liberal Arts Minors

Enrich your BFA with a liberal arts minor.

Art History

Unravel the stories behind great pieces of modern and contemporary art while building your own practice.
Art Therapy

Explore the interactions of art and mental health in preparation for graduate study and certification.
Business

Tailor coursework in math, business, and entrepreneurship to meet your creative and career goals.
Copywriting

Hone your wordsmithing skills with courses in digital media, strategic communications, and persuasive language.
Creative Writing

Dive into literature and creative writing in the genre(s) of your choice, from fiction to creative nonfiction to poetry.

Special Opportunities in the Liberal Arts

Botticelli Magazine

Publish your poems, short stories, comics, and more in Botticelli, an online literary and art magazine produced by CCAD students since 1970. You can also learn editorial skills in the course that creates Botticelli, Literary Publishing. Botticelli is the centerpiece of CCAD's vital and inclusive community of literary artists.

Botticelli

Creative Writing Awards

Each year, CCAD students submit vibrant and risk-taking work to the Creative Writing Awards Series, an annual contest for CCAD undergraduates in three categories: prose (fiction/nonfiction), poetry, and screenwriting. Award recipients have the option of reading at Red Wheelbarrow at Chroma: Best of CCAD. The Creative Writing Awards are made possible through the generous support of Bob Redfield and Mary Yerina.

Red Wheelbarrow Reading Series

Join us for Red Wheelbarrow, CCAD's creative writing reading series founded in 2011. Each semester features students and faculty reading their original work in the fields of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, screenwriting, and hybrid forms. At the end of the spring semester, a special Red Wheelbarrow at CHROMA spotlights the students who've won that year's Creative Writing Awards. Named for William Carlos Williams' famous poem "The Red Wheelbarrow" and inspired by the poem's bold imagery, Red Wheelbarrow is a welcoming space for all CCAD students.

First-Year Common Read Program

Each year, CCAD's Writing, Literature and Philosophy Department chooses a book that all incoming students will read, discuss, and write about in their first-year writing courses. The First-Year Common Read program is designed to build community, lay a foundation for dialogue that will continue throughout your time at CCAD, and help you locate yourself as an artist, designer, critical thinker, and citizen in this ever-changing world. Interactive events with the authors form the cornerstone of the program. Recent Common Read authors include Saeed Jones (How We Fight for Our Lives), Maia Kobabe (Gender Queer: A Memoir), and Hanif Abdurraqib (They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us).

Course Spotlight

Queer Literature

Immerse yourself in a selection of literature written by queer authors about queer characters. Taking an expansive and intersectional view of the term "queer," you'll read experimental and genre-blurring works, primary contemporary texts, and excepted historical texts, which combine to represent many facets of identity and sexuality.