News

• Featured News

  Singer, Trumpeter Bria Skonberg to Perform, Discuss Career as Part of Setnor Residency

  The College of Visual and Performing Arts’ Rose, Jules R. and Stanford S. Setnor School of Music will host New York-based Canadian singer, trumpeter and songwriter Bria Skonberg for a three-day residency Sept. 26-28, presented as part of the Setnor School’s Baker Artists Program. The residency will culminate with a concert on Friday, Sept. 28, at 8 p.m. in the Rose and Jules R. Setnor Auditorium, Crouse College. The concert is free and open to the public. Skonberg will perform with student jazz ensembles Orange Syndicate, Orange Collective and the Morton Schiff Jazz Ensemble as well as jazz and commercial music faculty from the Setnor School. Read More...

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  James Haywood Rolling Jr. Appointed VPA’s Inaugural Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

  James Haywood Rolling Jr., dual professor of art education and teaching and leadership in Syracuse University’s College of Visual and PerformingArts (VPA) and School of Education and the chair of art education, has been appointed VPA’s inaugural director of diversity, equity and inclusion. In this new role, Rolling will lead VPA’s diversity and inclusion initiatives in conjunction with the University’s chief diversity officer; establish and lead a college-wide committee with faculty, staff and students to facilitate projects, programming and other action items deemed necessary and appropriate to promote a more inclusive environment; collaborate as necessary with VPA’s leadership by attending Academic and Staff Council meetings as scheduled; and develop and assess outcomes to determine effectiveness and return on investment. Read More...

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  Futurist, Thinker David Houle ’69 to Deliver VPA Fall Convocation Keynote Address

  David Houle ’69, a futurist, thinker, speaker and Syracuse University alumnus, will deliver the keynote address at the College of Visual and Performing Arts’ (VPA) annual fall convocation on Wednesday, Sept. 26, at 4 p.m. in Goldstein Auditorium, Schine Student Center. The event is open to VPA students, faculty and staff. Houle spent more than 20 years in media and entertainment. He has worked at NBC, CBS and was part of the senior executive team that created and launched MTV, Nickelodeon, VH1 and CNN Headline News. He has won a number of awards, including two Emmys, the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award, and the Heartland Award for “Hank Aaron: Chasing the Dream.” He was also nominated for an Academy Award. Read More...

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  Art Photography Alumna Rose Marie Cromwell G’13 Named Light Work Photobook Award Recipient

  Rose Marie Cromwell, a 2013 graduate of the College of Visual and Performing Arts' master of fine arts (M.F.A.) degree program in art photography the Department of Transmedia, has received the 2018 Light Work Photobook Award for her monograph, “El Libro Supremo de la Suerte,” which TIS Books and Light Work will co-publish this year. The Light Work Photobook Award is given annually to an artistic project that deserves international attention. As with all of Light Work’s programs, in selecting the artists to receive this recognition it seeks to highlight emerging and underrepresented artists of diverse backgrounds. Read More...

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  VPA Welcomes Seven New Full-time Faculty Members

  Seven new full-time faculty joined the College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) this fall. Their disciplines span communication and rhetorical studies, computer art and animation, film, industrial and interaction design and music composition. Read More...

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  Syracuse Ranked Among OnStage Blog’s Top 25 Programs for Acting, Musical Theater, Theater Design and Technology

  OnStage Blog has ranked Syracuse University on its top 25 lists for bachelor of fine arts (B.F.A.) degree programs in acting, musical theater and theater design and technology. The ranked programs are housed in the College of Visual and Performing Arts’ Department of Drama. OnStage included the drama department’s B.F.A. acting program on its list of the “Top 25 B.F.A. Acting/Performance Programs for 2018-19.” The program takes full advantage of the resources provided by the drama department faculty and the department’s relationship with Syracuse Stage, a professional theater, to offer emerging theater artists with rigorous training in performance technique, text analysis, creative improvisation, voice, speech and movement. Read More...

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  Fashion Design Alumnae, Faculty Work Accepted into International Textile and Apparel Conference

  Several alumnae and faculty of the fashion design program in the College of Visual and Performing Arts’ School of Design recently had their work accepted into the International Textile and Apparel Association (ITAA) Conference, to be held Nov. 6-9 in Cleveland. Lawren Cappelletti and Helena Elston, both Class of 2018, had undergraduate work accepted into the design exhibition. Out of 134 undergraduate entries submitted, only 23 percent were accepted into this year’s competition. Read More...

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  Syracuse University Among Hollywood Reporter’s Top 25 American Film Schools

  For the sixth consecutive year, Syracuse University was ranked by The Hollywood Reporter (THR) on its list of the “Top 25 American Film Schools.” The 2018 list, which THR compiled after consulting with educators, industry professionals and alumni, ranks Syracuse at No. 22. The College of Visual and Performing Arts offers both bachelor of fine arts and master of fine arts degrees in film. Read More...

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  Design Students’ Wearable IV Device Wins SU Campus Session of Invent@SU

  It was a perfect meeting of tech and design. Industrial and interaction design majors Quinn King ’20 and Alec Gillinder ’20 of the College of Visual and Performing Arts' School of Design saw a need for a portable, lightweight device that could deliver intravenous (IV) fluids and spent six weeks designing one as part of the Invent@SU program. Their device, L-IV Liberating Intravenous, attaches an IV to a person’s arm and upper body using just two straps and has an embedded pressure infuser bag. Ten student teams designed, prototyped and pitched their inventions over the course of the Invent@SU program. Before final judging, teams presented to guest evaluators each week to get feedback and suggestions. “That allowed us to bring the confidence we needed,” says King. Read More...

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  Film Students’ Work Selected for Screenings, Honors in Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Brooklyn

  Two film students and two recent alumni of the bachelor of fine arts (B.F.A.) film program in the College of Visual and Performing Arts’ Department of Transmedia recently had their short films selected for screenings and honors at national film competitions and festivals. Isobella Antelis ‘18 and Zoey Peck ’18 had their final theses screened at the Independent Shorts Awards (ISA) in Los Angeles this July. Antelis’s “Blue Toes” won platinum awards for Best LGBT Short and Best Student Short. The short also received gold awards for Best Children Short and Best Original Story and a bronze award for Best Cinematography. The film tells the story of a boy who fights to break the rules of gender normative behavior between children. Read More...

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  Design Student Michael Paris ’20, Co-Founder of Syracuse University Startup, Talks about the Power of User-Centered Design, Joining Techstars Atlanta to Build Live Streaming Influencer Marketing Tools

  Michael Paris ’20, a communications design major in the College of Visual and Performing Arts' (VPA) School of Design and co-founder of PowerSpike, the leading influencer marketing and analytics platform for live streaming, had a memorable summer.  The student startup he co-founded with Angelo Damiano ’18, Whitman School of Management (marketing management/entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises) won a combined investment of $500,000 by The Sixers Innovation Lab Crafted by Kimball; Techstars Atlanta, in partnership with Cox Enterprises; Dorm Room Fund; and other outside investors. In addition, he spent the summer working on the venture as part of the prestigious Techstars Atlanta startup accelerator. Read More...

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  Talent Agency to Present Teen Art Portfolio Pop-Up Show Aug. 17

  Nineteen teen artists who completed the 2018 Talent Agency Summer Intensive under the guidance of faculty and students from Syracuse University and the College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) will present their portfolios on Friday, Aug. 17, from 4-6 p.m. at Point of Contact Gallery, 350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse. Read More...

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  Stephen Mahan, Teacher, Mentor and Director of University-based Photography and Literacy Project, Dies

  Syracuse University learned the sad news this week that Stephen C. Mahan III, founding director of the University-based Photography and Literacy Project and a professor in the College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA), died in a July 26 vehicular accident in Manlius, New York.

  Steve Mahan (Photo by Carrie Mae Weems)

  For more than 30 years, Mahan was a leader in the Syracuse art and photography community—and a mentor and teacher to both University students and city schoolchildren who came to know him through the Photography and Literacy Project on the city’s Near Westside. In that program, he helped city high school students develop a capacity for self-expression and their own unique “voice” through words and imagery. The program—whose origins go back to 2005 before taking on its current name in 2010—is a collaboration among the University’s Coalition of Museums and Art Centers, VPA and the Syracuse City School District. Mahan also worked tirelessly in the community with mentors and children at the Hillside Work-Scholarship Connection, the Southwest Community Center and the North Side Learning Center. He also taught classes at the Community Darkrooms/Light Work Lab and served on Light Work’s board of directors from 2010-2018. Read More...

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  VPA Announces Spring 2018 Dean’s List

  The following undergraduate students enrolled in the College of Visual and Performing Arts were among those named to the Dean's List for the Spring 2018 semester. To qualify for the Dean's List, students must complete a minimum of 12 credit hours and earn at least a 3.4 grade point average (on a 4.0 scale) during the semester. Students: Please contact the VPA Office of Student Success at 315.443.2517 or  for questions about your current Dean's List status. Read More...

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  Don Carr Receives Core77 Design Awards Honor for SyracuseCoE Project

  Don Carr, professor of design in the College of Visual and Performing Arts’ School of Design, received a runner-up honor in the Design Conceptcategory in the 2018 Core77 Design Awards program for the project Amber Waves, an energy harvesting concept that looks to capture low-level atmospheric energy at the ground level. Carr served as the lead for the project, which was designed for the SyracuseCoE, New York State’s Center of Excellence for Environmental and Energy Systems. Designers Rob Englert of RAM ID and Meyer Giordano, a part-time instructor in VPA’s Department of Transmedia, also served as members of the project team. Read More...

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  Museum Studies Graduate Student Selected for Baseball Hall of Fame Summer Internship

  Lily Brandt G'19, a graduate museum studies student in the College of Visual and Performing Arts’ School of Design, is one of 19 college students interning at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., this summer as part of the Frank and Peggy Steele Internship Program for Youth Leadership Development. Brandt is interning in the Hall of Fame’s collections department as part of the ten-week program, which concludes Aug. 10. Read More...

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  Moneyish Interviews Adriana Gorea about Kate Spade Bags

  Adriana Gorea, assistant professor of fashion design in the College of Visual and Performing Arts’ School of Design, was quoted in the Moneyish story “Women tell Moneyish why their first Kate Spade purse was a symbol of success.” “Kate Spade identified a niche for stylish yet more affordable bags that young women could wear on their first job out of college, or to show their financial independence,” said Gorea in the article. “The lack of frills or overdone details made them more modern; grown-up. The streamlined look made her style a versatile, functional yet classy combination that many consumers understand...

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  Music Industry Student Receives Clements Internship Award

  Charlie Burg '19, a music industry major in the College of Visual and Performing Arts' Rose, Jules R. and Stanford S. Setnor School of Music, is one of nine Syracuse University students to receive a 2018 Mark and Pearle Clements Internship Award. This award enables the students to hold unique internships that would not be possible without financial help. Clements interns will usually spend one summer away from the University, working under the guidance and supervision of an expert who can help them connect their academic learning to real world application. Read More...

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  Winning Dress by Fashion Design Senior Unveiled by Ashley Stewart® and Supermodel Emme ’85

  A dress design by Courtney Capazzi ’18, a fashion design major in the College of Visual and Performing Arts’ (VPA) School of Design, is now available for purchase thanks to retailer Ashley Stewart®, the leading plus-size fashion and social commerce brand, and iconic supermodel Emme ’85. Capazzi’s design was selected as the winner of the 2017 Fashion Without Limits (FWL) EMME Fashion Award™. FWL is an inclusive fashion design initiative co-founded by Emme and VPA’s School of Design to improve the lives of all women (including 100 million women above a size 12 in the U.S. alone) not able to find well-fitting, fashionable clothes to reflect their lifestyle. Read More...

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  Department of Drama Announces 2018-19 Season

  The Department of Drama in Syracuse University's College of Visual and Performing Arts announced the six plays and musicals that will make up the 2018/2019 season. With an emphasis on contemporary work, the season addresses a variety of current issues and concerns as experienced from intimately personal points of view. The season celebrates stories of consequence, while at the same time investigating and challenging the process, implications and impact of storytelling itself. Read More...