College of Visual and Performing Arts

The College of Visual and Performing Arts (Mason Arts) facilitates a shared pursuit of creative and academic discovery, inspiring a broad population of learners and patrons toward lifelong engagement in the arts.

See the Impact

The arts play a central role in the life of George Mason University by offering students from all fields the chance to participate in creative endeavors in the classroom, studio, stage, gallery, and beyond; by welcoming hundreds of thousands onto our campuses each year for performances and exhibitions; and by building a vibrant community of faculty, staff, students, and visiting professionals in pursuit of the college’s mission.

The arts create community. They allow us to reflect, to dream, to touch the highest levels of human capability as captured in a soaring song, the stroke of a brush, the leap of a dancer. George Mason is poised to take a leading role in this vital work with wise investments in the people, places, and programs that will secure our position as a major center for studying, making, and experiencing the arts.

Dean Rick Davis

Priority Funding Needs

Scholarships

Our students receive the rich benefits of a large research university coupled with a multitude of performance and exhibit venues, dedicated faculty mentors, deep connections with working artists through master classes, and an abundance of internships and professional development opportunities in the Greater Washington, D.C., metropolitan region.

Often they are the first in their family to attend college, receive Pell Grants, and attend part-time or full-time while also working. Scholarship support removes financial barriers for promising young artists.

Computer Game Design and Film Facility

The Film at Mason and Computer Game Design programs have rapidly outgrown their physical spaces in various shared facilities, so that now, these signature programs are restricted in their enrollment growth. A new interdisciplinary teaching, research, and exhibition facility will enable Film and Game Design to reach its extraordinary potential for supporting students in creative careers.

Arts District and Sculpture Garden

CVPA would like the campus visitors, students, and campus community to experience the cultural, educational, and social benefits provided by distinctive sculpture installations on campus and opportunities for artists to display work in a public setting. Through the creation of the Arts District, George Mason will become a destination for arts experiences across a variety of disciplines – performing and visual – to benefit the campus community and community at large.

Faculty Chairs and Professorships

Funds for faculty allow CVPA to attract professionals at the top of their fields to teach at George Mason University by making competitive offers to outstanding faculty recruits or supporting the retention of outstanding faculty.

Museum Concept

George Mason University envisions an art museum to reflect its stature as the largest and most diverse university in Virginia. A dedicated art museum would build on our robust Mason Exhibitions programs and raise our visibility as one of the most significant cultural assets in the region. The museum will allow for the university’s collections to be shared with the public using high curatorial standards, and provide valuable research, teaching, and public educational opportunities. Mason Arts seeks to develop conceptual plans for a museum.

Give Voice: Center for the Arts Reimagination Project

Give Voice is a capital initiative to raise $35 million toward the reimagining of the Center for the Arts. The new design will enhance the acoustic and technological capabilities, upgrade the experience of attending a performance or event, position the center as a nationally recognized destination for visiting artists, and expand our teaching and rehearsal spaces, nurturing the next generation of artists.

Hylton Performing Arts Center Endowment

All non-profit performing arts centers require philanthropic support to balance their budgets because of their mission-driven business model that focuses on accessibility, excellence, and diversity of programming. Endowments form a key component of successful, sustainable arts organizations, providing reliable annual operating support that allows an institution to plan, dream, innovate, and in those occasional, inevitable periods of fiscal challenge, weather whatever storms the world has in store.

A $15 million endowment fund will enable the Hylton Center to bring artists and programs of ever greater renown to our stages – in the form of luminous visiting performers and original productions that capitalize on the Hylton’s distinctive architectural assets – as well as strengthening our portfolio of community programs including our initiatives around education and Veterans and the Arts.