CCA News
CCA Announces $25 Million Centennial Fundraising Campaign
Posted on Friday, April 27, 2007, by Brenda Tucker
To expand and enhance its facilities, help launch new programs, and honor its commitment to making education accessible, California College of the Arts (CCA) has launched the Centennial Campaign, the most ambitious fundraising effort in the school's history. With a $25 million goal, the Centennial Campaign is seeking investment in a series of initiatives that will strengthen the college and prepare it for its next 100 years of excellence in arts education. The campaign was announced last night during CCA's Centennial Gala in San Francisco, marking the beginning of its public phase. To date $22 million has been raised, exceeding the initial-phase objective.
Campaign chair Judy Timken remarked, "CCA's centennial is a momentous occasion to celebrate our past, to reflect on the hard work and values that brought us to this point, and to consider CCA's tremendous potential for the future. This special $25 million campaign will meet the college's most pressing needs and secure CCA's place at the forefront of arts education, preparing the most promising students to shape the future of our culture. We are deeply grateful to CCA's generous trustees and to the many donors in the Bay Area and across the country who have helped us raise $22 million toward our goal. As we begin to broaden our outreach in the coming months, we are confident that we will reach our objective."
Funding Priorities
The college will direct funding to three key areas: expanding studio and classroom facilities, increasing endowed scholarships, and launching new academic programs, including an undergraduate Animation Program, a Graduate Program in Film, and an MBA Program in Design Strategy.
CCA has identified several San Francisco campus improvement projects as priorities through 2009. These include completion of the new Graduate Center, construction of facilities for the new Graduate Program in Film that will launch in 2008, new studios for the growing Master of Architecture Program, and purchase and renovation of the Student and Faculty Service Center building.
Every year, more students nationwide are applying to CCA; since 2000 undergraduate applications have grown 84 percent. The cost of an education at CCA also continues to grow, and more than half of those who are admitted decline to attend for financial reasons. With funds raised from the campaign, the college hopes to expand need-based, merit, and diversity scholarships.
The campaign will also support new programs, including three new majors. In fall 2007 CCA will launch an undergraduate Animation Program led by chair Andrew Lyndon of Pixar Animation Studios. The program will help students gain conceptual and technical skills in cinema-based character and experimental animation, film production, interactive media, motion graphics, narrative storytelling, and video.
Academy Award?winning filmmaker Rob Epstein has been appointed chair of the new Graduate Program in Film, which will admit its first students in fall 2008. Film students will have the opportunity to work in documentary, fiction, and experimental forms, with narrative serving as a common foundation.
The innovative MBA Program in Design Strategy, also beginning in fall 2008, will unite the study of design, finance, and organizational management in a unique curriculum aimed at providing students with the necessary tools and strategies for today's complex, interconnected market.
About CCA
Founded in 1907, California College of the Arts (formerly California College of Arts and Crafts) is the largest regionally accredited, independent school of art and design in the western United States.
Noted for the interdisciplinary nature and breadth of its programs, CCA currently offers studies in 20 undergraduate and six graduate majors in the areas of fine arts, architecture, design, and writing. The college offers bachelor of architecture, bachelor of arts, bachelor of fine arts, master of architecture, master of arts, and master of fine arts degrees.
With campuses in Oakland and San Francisco, CCA currently enrolls more than 1,600 full-time students.