Art and design programs continue to grow at Christian colleges and universities, but a comprehensive database of what institutions offer in those areas of study did not exist.

Karen Sangren, chair of Point Loma Nazarene University Department of Art and Design, recognized the need to distinguish those Christian institutions that had otherwise been underrepresented in general information about Council for Christian Colleges & Universities art and design programs.

Recently she led a team of five researchers who completed the 2010 CCCU/CIVA (Christians in the Visual Arts) National Status Report of Art and Design Programs, a distinct and unprecedented three-year study of current art and design programs in more than 100 North American Christian colleges and universities.

“Nothing like this has ever been done before on the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities art and design programs,” Sangren said.

Sangren gathered qualitative and quantitative information through online research, site-visit interviews, and two national surveys. Also part of the status report team leadership was Cameron Anderson, executive director of Christians in the Visual Arts, and Jeffrey Grubbs, director of CIVA’s Art Education Caucus.

The compiled data will soon lead to the CIVA National Registry of Art and Design Programs in Higher Education, an easy-to-navigate online resource for students, parents, administrators, and faculty to compare art and design programs by regions, denominations, institutional and departmental size, faculty, majors, and special programs all on one website.

This information and the website it now underpins will help promote art and design as flourishing programs in Christian colleges and universities, as well as provide an immense resource for development and decision-making in these programs in Christian higher education.

“Sangren has coordinated with CIVA, our national organization of professional artists,” said Wayne L. Roosa, chair of the Bethel University Department of Art and the New York Center for Art & Media Studies. “That coordination will also bear enormous fruit because she is helping tie together and create a network of art-making and creative people in a new way.”
--Point Loma Nazarene University