Mission Statement and Core Values

Mission Statement

The Mission of the American Academy of Art is to teach students the traditional and contemporary skills of the professional artist to enable them to pursue careers in art. Academy graduates will have the professional skills and vision, the knowledge of other disciplines of human achievement, and the attitudes toward lifelong learning needed to succeed in a constantly evolving global job market while contributing to their communities.

Core Values

The College Community Believes in:

Lifelong learning:
Among our students and staff alike, we support self-development, the use of critical thinking skills for intellectual independence, and an appreciation of the need to integrate new knowledge and technology.

Emphasis:
The Academy believes in the importance of stressing foundation skills, such as drawing, color and design. The competencies it teaches are rooted in a long tradition of representative visual thinking, but interface with a modern visual language using today's tools for artists.

Assessment, accountability and continuous improvement:
The Academy focuses on the "value-added" of the education provided, and seeks innovative ways to improve that. It actively seeks both internal and external assessment in order to ensure that it is continually striving for excellence.

Diversity:
The Academy promotes and integrates diverse ways of thinking about art, diverse media for working in the art field, and, ultimately diverse ways of world-making. It provides students with the awareness of cultural differences, particularly by demonstrating how images are created and interpreted.

Employment:
The Academy realizes that its ultimate success is measured by the number of graduates who find careers as professional artists. In order to facilitate their achievement, it seeks input from employers and students to identify and improve job opportunities.

Resource:
The Academy believes that it is uniquely positioned to serve as a resource at the convergence of many creative communities, including fine art and commercial art, industry and creative talent, digital art and traditional art.

Self-Reliance:
The institution seeks to provide a challenging environment where students can discover their full potential and apply with confidence the life skills of self-discipline, responsibility, and problem solving.