RATIONALE

For more than forty-five years, Concordia University’s Faculty of Fine Arts has actively shaped the artistic and cultural ecosystems of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and beyond by contributing to the training of artists, designers, performers, cultural workers, creative arts therapists, educators, and scholars. 

With 4,000 students enrolled in some 60 undergraduate and graduate programs, the Faculty of Fine Arts is unique in Canada: no other university offers as wide a range of fine arts curriculums. 

While we are a world away from the first Department of Fine Arts founded by three professors in 1961, their experimental spirit still inspires us. We continue to foster innovation through our research, our pedagogical practices, and the innumerable ways we interact with creative and scholarly communities. 

Since its creation in 1976, the Faculty of Fine Arts has expanded and diversified remarkably. Our teaching and research have changed to address contemporary social needs. Our creative and scholarly practices have evolved toward interdisciplinarity, and greater engagement with technology, sustainable practices, accessibility, and community partnerships. 

We must continue to evolve to meet the future head-on. Today’s students want more diversity in the classroom, more flexibility in program offerings, and more extra-curricular support; faculty and staff seek agility, adaptability and efficiency in the models, processes and (infra)structures that support teaching, research and work; and our community is calling for socially and environmentally sustainable study and work environments. 

To address these calls for change, we established a strategic plan that we built upon analysis of our strengths, challenges and development opportunities. 

Our faculty has often described itself as innovative, student-oriented, connected to the community, and committed to experiential learning. The strategic planning exercise has enabled us to ask ourselves to what degree these values still hold and how we can take concrete, measurable actions to support them.

Over the next few months and years, we will work together to channel our values and the strategic directions we developed into concrete actions that support our mission and will get us closer to what we aspire to be. We will be checking in regularly, so stay tuned.

Annie Gérin 
Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts 
Concordia University