Degrees Offered:
Bachelor of Arts (B.A.)
Interdisciplinary Arts and Media
Overview
Barton’s interdisciplinary arts and media major focuses on the growing importance of digital media, media writing, design, and movement in installation and/or performance design. Coursework allows for an open-ended path to explore innovative connections between the fine, performing, and media arts. Students are encouraged to investigate offerings in creative and technical courses including studio courses, design, video, sound, creative script writing, and theatre. Our students emerge prepared for success in other fields that value interpretation, exploration, and collaboration.
Special Features
Working with your faculty advisor, you will select courses from three areas, with one primary track and two secondary tracks. In each track, you will complete upper-level courses, and an independent project, installation, or performance. Barton utilizes industry standard software and equipment. You will have opportunities to be active in productions, publication, and exhibition development, as well as the opportunity to engage as an intern as you build skills for positions in the media industry.
Invest in Your Success at Barton College
Course Information
The degree requires an equal concentration in all three areas from the following disciplines, which consists of 24 semester hours in the primary program and 18 semester hours in each of the two secondary areas. Those disciplines are:
- Communications (Audio, Video, Journalism, Public Relations)
- Theatre (Design, Management, Performance, Musical Theatre)
- Visual Arts (Ceramics, Painting, Graphic Design, Photography, Gallery Studies)
Historic overview courses and upper level courses are required in each area.
In your junior year, you’ll take a portfolio course to prepare for a required portfolio review in which you’ll show ten pieces of art that demonstrate your fundamental skills. As a senior, you’ll build a professional portfolio that demonstrates your aesthetic and technical skills and shows that you’re prepared to work in the art and media industry or to proceed to graduate school.
Scholarships and Financial Aid
The Bessie Massengill Art Scholarship is awarded annually to a student majoring in art selected by the art department faculty.
The Triangle East Advertising and Marketing Association Scholarship is awarded annually to an upper-class student majoring in graphic design who is a resident of eastern North Carolina and who intends to be employed in a related field in eastern North Carolina.
The Rom and Marie Watson Art Scholarship is awarded to a student seeking a studio art degree. The Department of Art faculty chooses a recipient based on the artistic merit of the student’s work through the process of portfolio reviews with preference given to student participants in the Scholastic Art Awards.
The department also awards the Stuart Walston, Inc. Endowed Scholarship and the Price-Watson Annual Scholarship to qualified students.
Internships
Our students have interned at:
- Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Art and Leadership Program
- National Museum of the American Indian
- The Women’s United Soccer Association
- Duke Press
- Herald-Sun, Durham, N.C.
- Carolina Mudcats
- Advanced Rehabilitation Seminars Company
- The Arts Council of Wilson
- Barrett’s Printing House
- Theatre at Barton
- Carolina Cabinet Company
- Creative Graphics
- Hendersonville Printing Company
- Images Photography Inc.
- Jerico Screen Printing
- Jeffcoat Studios
- Mint Museum
- Wilson County Fair
- Reynolda House
- Rockets Softball, Greenville, N.C.
- Signature Dance Company
- Type A Design Concepts
- Ronald L. Sowers Photography
- Wildwood Lamps
- Wilson Times
Career Opportunities
In addition to work in the creative arts, an art degree may lead to careers in many applied art fields. Our alumni work as:
- Art Directors
- Art Teachers
- Cartoonists
- Ceramicists
- Commercial Photographers
- Graphic Artists
- Craftspersons
- Designers
- Fine Art Photographers
- Floor Covering Designers
- Furniture Designers
- Gallery Directors
- Illustrators
- Industrial Designers
- Painters
- Photo Retouchers
- Photofinisher Specialists
- Photography Teachers
- Photojournalists
- Portrait Painters
- Private Art Instructors
- Public Relations Directors
- Sculptors
- Signage Designers
- Stage Designers
- Wood Crafters
Our majors also continue their education in graduate programs throughout the Southeast. Recent graduates have been accepted to:
- East Carolina University
- East Carolina University
- Virginia Polytechnic Institute
- Auburn University
- University of Georgia – Lamar Dodd School of Art
- University of Maryland
- University of North Carolina at Greensboro
- North Carolina State University
- Radford University
- University of Kentucky
Clubs and Organizations
The Art Students’ League of Barton College hosts bi-weekly meetings and cookouts, and sponsors student exhibitions.
The Friends of Visual Arts organizes lectures and exhibitions and brings to Barton College visiting artists of regional, national, and international status.