As someone who has been with the STAR for three semesters now focusing on Arts and Entertainment, I’ve seen just how important the arts are to our university.
They’re a major part of what builds community on campus, with the way that they bring students, artists, and educators together. Whether it’s the Arts department with its collaborative atmosphere and numerous exhibitions of student artwork, or the Music department with its tight-knit group of students and educators encouraging and teaching one another, the way in which these students have come together to learn, collaborate, and create together is truly something special.
And even for students who may not be artists themselves, they are given the opportunity to be a part of this community building. They attend the galleries, the concerts, and the numerous other events that allow them to engage with the arts on campus.
And as such, community starts to form and strengthen, with artists learning and collaborating with each other and then getting to showcase their work to an active, curious audience.
And all of this is extremely important, because a strong community on campus is what we need most right now. While our university has only just begun to recover from the hardships of last year’s budget cuts, there still remains some amount of uncertainty about the specifics of what majors will be ‘reimagined’ and how. And that’s on top of the world that we live in right now, with a hostile political environment constantly threatening to divide us.
The arts challenge that divisiveness and uncertainty, allowing people to get out into their community and interact not just with art itself, but those who create it. By giving us that connection, our community becomes stronger, and less divided.
Whether it’s a club around video game development, an exhibition about climate change, or an incredible musical performance with a guest drummer, there’s an abundance of diverse creativity here at Sonoma State just waiting to be explored. I have high hopes for the arts here on campus, and because of that, I have high hopes for the future of this university as a whole.
