The Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Art aims more specifically at the aspiring professional artist and designer and prepares these students with the skills and knowledge needed to go on to graduate study or a design career.

The creative capacity of students pursuing the BFA degree leads them to express themselves visually. The degree curriculum enables these students to determine their artistic identity and their expressive voice, providing them with the tools and means to communicate their ideas, thereby participating within their community through their chosen emphasis. The intellectually rigorous program focuses on the communicative power of art—it demands of students a high level of commitment, introspection, and consideration. While still situated within a university that offers various opportunities for exploration outside the field of art, BFA students focus in greater depth in their graphic design practice. The extra art or design credits taken allow for further investigation into a chosen emphasis, ultimately producing a final body of work in that emphasis to be shown in a final professional gallery exhibition and explained in a final thesis or portfolio project.

The BFA in Graphic Design degree familiarizes students with the rich tradition of the visual arts, provides them with an understanding of the tools and materials available to the artist as a means of personal expression, shows students that there are fundamental concepts which unify all art yet which allow for infinite variation, and introduces to them alternative ways of looking, seeing, finding, and discovering. Graphic Design students explore a wide variety of media, gaining extensive studio experience and learning the techniques and expressive opportunities unique to each. A primary focus of the program is on students finding their own creative and conceptual voice and discovering ways to visually communicate their thoughts and ideas.

Students at this level learn within a more professional framework, where the relationship between student and teacher becomes that of apprentice and master. Through this unique teaching relationship, students develop a high level of achievement in an area of expertise, while further developing personal creative abilities. In this manner, they establish a sound basis for significant professional accomplishments in art.