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CCA Strategic Plan 2026–2031

Mission

Educating and empowering artistic and creative leaders to transform society through imagination, innovation, and community.

Vision

The College of Creative Arts prepares students to thrive as artistic and creative leaders who bring vision, empathy, and critical thinking to the world. Through education, mentorship, and shared creative experiences, we empower individuals to make innovative and meaningful contributions to advance society.

Values

Empowering Artists, Creatives, and Scholars

We equip students with the skills, confidence, and tools to thrive as leaders in creative and design fields in a changing world.

Cultivating Community

We build connections that foster empathy, collaboration, and shared purpose across disciplines and communities.

Inspiring Innovation

We champion imagination and experimentation, helping ideas become reality and shaping the world that must be.

Advancing Humanity

We affirm creativity as essential to human flourishing, healing, and civic engagement, preparing students to contribute to the common good.

Stewarding Resources and Knowledge

We advocate for the value of artistic and creative fields, ensuring access, sustainability, and impact through teaching, research, and community engagement.

Key Drivers of Change

  1. Increasing overall enrollment and retention
  2. Embracing transformational technology by incorporating it into each discipline
  3. Ensuring mentorship for all CCA students with a priority on engaging alumni
  4. Creating more experiential learning experiences for students
  5. Enhancing faculty skills through professional development with a priority on experiential learning
  6. Intensifying interdisciplinary collaboration by dissolving silos and creating systems for collaboration in and out of the classroom (inside of CCA and with non-CCA disciplines)
  7. Securing new investments in facilities and in faculty and staff support

Priority Learning Areas

Alongside continued high-quality learning of traditional arts, creative, and designdisciplines, our priority learning areas include:

  1. Literacy, integration, and ethics of transformational technologies (including AI)
  2. Community-building through arts+design
  3. Multi-sector arts+design applications, such as health, wellbeing, and safety
  4. Creative industry entrepreneurship.

Student Engagement Priorities

  1. Career connections with alumni.
  2. Faculty, staff, and alumni mentorship.
  3. Additive academic and career preparation experiences - internships, winter terms, work/study, global experiences, applied research, and other immersive learning experiences.
  4. Multi-disciplinary experiences within and external to CCA.
  5. Community-building among students across CCA and beyond - events, clubs, performances, and gatherings.

Goals and Objectives

Students are equipped to be creative and critical thinkers and leaders in the rapidly evolving artistic and creative workforces through interdisciplinary scholarship and experiential learning with a focus on the integration of new technologies with traditional art and design practices.

Innovation and Future-Focused Academics

CCA is fueled by academics characterized by innovation, collaboration, and future-focused career preparation.

  1. Continuously identify and incorporate transformational technologies into curricula to ensure students are fluent in both traditional and emerging creative practices and inquiry.
  2. Continuously identify and integrate interdisciplinary coursework with immersive learning opportunities.
  3. Integrate career preparedness throughout academics.
  4. Strengthen programs at the intersection of arts/design, health, and wellness, including initiatives that explore creative approaches to improvements in health, therapy, and community well-being.
  5. Fully implement recent changes and additions to CCA degree offerings (see Degree Changes section below for details).

Community of Excellence Beyond the Classroom

CCA is a community of high-performing students, faculty, staff, and alumni who are deeply engaged in the continuous creation of excellence in the college.

  1. Ensure comprehensive, high-quality, student-centric learning experiences and mentorship beyond the classroom.
  2. Continuously build a culture of community within CCA, where faculty, staff, and students support each other, learn together, and produce together.
  3. Ensure access to quality professional development and support for faculty, staff, and students.
  4. Improve the student advisory experience.
  5. Strengthen overall college operations through a revised governance structure, policy updates, operation continuity documents, and more.

Urban Bridges: Industry and Community Partnerships

CCA robustly participates in the Urban Bridges program (and with other nearby cities) through applied research, career preparation, and experiential learning programs in partnership with alumni and local organizations, coalitions, and industries.

  1. Assist with the Columbus Bridge with a focus on the fashion and film industry.
  2. Assist with the Cleveland Bridge with a focus on arts, design, and health.
  3. Continue community partnership cultivation in Dayton.
  4. Continue to strengthen the Cincinnati Bridge with multiple areas including architecture, design, performing arts, visual arts, immersive entertainment experiences, community engagement, and arts entrepreneurship.
  5. Seek solutions to barriers students face regarding transportation and housing in partner urban centers.

Investments in Our Future

CCA has a strong foundation of investment in our faculty, staff, and facilities.

  1. Increase external funding through foundation grants, industry partnerships, and endowments.
  2. Increase research productivity and technology tools through new external grant funding.
  3. Implement significant renovations to learning and performing spaces and key changes to enhance student spaces (Richard and Carole Cocks Art Museum, Center for Performing Arts, and more).

Integral to Miami’s Value Proposition

CCA is integral to Miami University's value proposition.

  1. Provide all Miami University students with creative experiences through multiple pathways.
  2. Improve CCA recruitment and retention.
  3. Infuse CCA academics and creative leadership into other Miami colleges and throughout the University’s general education program (MILE).
  4. Clearly and consistently communicate CCA’s impact to upper leadership.
  5. Increase awareness of all that CCA offers at Miami - inside and outside of classrooms.
  6. Participate in overall University improvement initiatives.

College of Creative Arts

The arts at Miami University didn't evolve on a whim—they were challenged, inspired, modernized, and made more relevant by each new generation of artists. Welcome to the College of Creative Arts, with degree programs that range from the classical to the contemporary.

Center for Performing Arts building exterior with large arched windows