Strategic Areas of Focus
Design, Arts, and Performance
Creativity and ingenuity are at the very heart of advancing communication, industries, environments, performance and systems designs, and critical for all aspects of industry and community. Encompassing cross-cutting research with the arts, humanities and social sciences, the Design, Arts, and Performance initiative is intended to be integrative: Where overlap exists, this initiative is complementary, catalyzing, or both.
In addition to the Bio by Design initiative, the Design, Arts and Performance initiative
encompasses concepts such as universal design involving that of buildings, products
or environments to make them accessible to all or others, such as design for manufacturing,
which is a general engineering practice to develop products so that that they are
more efficiently and easily manufacturable. Arts and performance cover the visual
arts, music, dance and theatre, mass communication involving new media or social media,
and sports performance and management. Each of these design areas is separable, but they
are collectively supported by an education steeped in creative exploration and experimentation.
The interdisciplinary nature of art and design addresses issues of equity and representation
through evolving fields of user experience, information technology, multimedia exploration
and the interactive experience,
which help to convey a broad range of stories. This particular initiative makes clear
the vital role of the arts supporting several of the other initiatives including, but
not limited to, social justice, environment and the creation of livable/sustainable
communities.
Given the prominence of the Tampa Bay region’s economic activity, affinity for sports,
destination for entertainment, its numerous museums, and other cultural institutions
infused with arts and innovation, this initiative draws upon existing strengths that
are unique to USF’s communities in Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Sarasota-Manatee. Through
contributions to the revitalized arts and culture scene throughout the Tampa Bay area,
specifically through Graphicstudio/Institute for Research in Art and the School of
Music’s multiple ensembles as
well as other programs in the College of The Arts, USF can build upon many assets.
The Florida Center for Community Design and Research—an integral part of USF’s School
of Architecture and Community Design—is a statewide research center working with over
100 communities in Florida. Further, the Center for Analytics and Creativity, the
Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and the Center for Urban Transportation Research
demonstrate how design, art and performance channel curiosity and enable boundary-breaking
collaborations. Moreover, USF’s
campuses in St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee have centered their thriving and expanding
arts communities as anchors in engagement and enhancement initiatives as ways of embedding
USF into their respective design districts.