About The College of Arts & Letters (CAL)

Photo of a brick building, shot during spring

The MSU College of Arts & Letters (CAL) educates actors, artists, designers, filmmakers, linguists, philosophers, poets, teachers, translators, writers and much more in a creative, learning and nurturing environment.  Students who come to us with experience in their chosen field find the additional knowledge and personal space to further learn their craft and hone their skills. Those who have yet to identify their future life’s work are met with diverse opportunities for creative reflection to explore the world and find their passion.

Beyond traditional coursework, CAL provides student and faculty collaboration, interdisciplinary course offerings in the arts and humanities, and opportunities to engage the greater MSU community as well as those outside of campus. In these ways, we strive to nurture and produce artists, designers, teachers and writers whose work truly matters as they help build the body of work and shape the future of their chosen professions.

The College employs some of the most engaged, talented and forward-thinking faculty and scholars in the country to educate our students and bring public focus to the arts and humanities as the threads that weave together our numerous shared cultures and traditions. We not only want our graduates to succeed; we want and expect them to excel.

These are shared goals with our faculty, students and graduates, many of whom have made – and continue to make – their marks on their professions and on our world. In fact, this may well be our greatest strength: the joint belief that through our life’s work, we can help find solutions to the world’s most difficult problems.

The breadth and depth of that work being carried out on campus and in the community is incredible and at times, breathtaking. Young minds and formidable talent unleash new directions and challenge conventions in art, writing, design, teaching, theatre, digital media, thought and more that transcend cultures and send the mind and emotions reeling. This is the life essence of the MSU College of Arts & Letters.

It is why CAL continues developing and expanding a creative and collaborative environment where students, faculty, scholars, and accomplished professionals can brave new worlds and old problems together, collapsing local, regional, national and global issues into the understanding that all is global.  Just as importantly, this means our students are not “in it alone.” And it sets up patterns and expectations for their futures that will serve them well, regardless of their profession, as they work to cast, recast, shape and reshape the arts and humanities.