Creating a Haven for the Arts
Since our earliest days, Washington College has recognized the importance of the fine and performing arts within the liberal arts and sciences curriculum. In 1783-84, Washington College hired two women to teach painting and drawing. Elizabeth Emerson Callister Peale, the sister-in-law of famed American artist Charles Willson Peale, and her sister Sarah, thus became the first female faculty members to teach at any American institution of higher learning.
Throughout the past 225 years, this has been a place where the arts are valued. Here, professors share their appreciation for the arts in all their myriad forms, and fan the sparks of creativity within their students.
Our approach is very much hands-on, particularly as the senior capstone experience demands that students demonstrate mastery in their disciplines. Student actors, directors and technicians stage as many as 15 productions a year. The art and music departments elegantly combine theory, history and practice, with senior shows and concerts studding the calendar each spring. And the creative writing program—among the nation's first for undergraduates—nurtures student writers, supports them with special scholarships, and honors an outstanding senior every year with the largest undergraduate literary prize in the world.
The College has also staked its future on the arts. A $20 million expansion and renovation of the Gibson Performing Arts Center is underway. Plans call for the addition of a music recital hall, an experimental theatre and an art gallery, as well as renovation of the big stage and a dramatic new façade that symbolically positions the arts at the center of campus life.
In this 225th anniversary year, Washington College celebrates its rich heritage and affirms its commitment to the arts by designating The Rose O'Neill Literary House the Center for Literature and the Creative Arts.