CMU’s Dan Martin: “The arts are reflective, restorative, persuasive, transformational”

Dan Martin, dean of the School of Fine Arts, described Carnegie Mellon’s unique approach to arts education at a Dean’s Lecture on March 7.

Martin outlined how the School of Fine Arts focuses on professional practice as well as scholarship, exploration and research: “CMU believes the arts are not just decorative or diversionary, but reflective, restorative, persuasive and transformational.” The school is made up of five colleges: architecture, design, music, art and drama.

“It is the integration of the arts and sciences that makes Carnegie Mellon special,” asserted Martin. He described an educational environment that encourages collaboration between vastly different fields of study, stating that arts students work “elbow to elbow” with fellow students in engineering and the sciences.