Our College has long been an innovator in the literary, visual, performing, and cinematic arts:

• We were the first institution to accept creative work as final theses for advanced degrees, giving rise to today’s Master of Fine Arts degree.
• We were the first to combine the study of art history and the studio creation of visual art within the same school.
• Our literary arts programs are renowned worldwide, and have helped build the prestige that made Iowa City a designated UNESCO City of Literature.
• Our Division of Performing Arts offers extraordinary opportunities to all University of Iowa students for the study and performance of music, theatre arts, and dance.
• And we are at the vanguard of the cinematic arts and the rapidly evolving fields of the digital arts.

The arts are central to our history—and essential to our future.