Arts for All

We believe artistic creativity lives in every Terp and envision a world where everyone is empowered to use their creativity for the greater good—where the arts stand alongside the humanities, sciences, technology and other disciplines to jointly confront urgent global issues, from climate resilience to injustice to poverty. Arts for All is a campuswide, presidential initiative that makes this vision a reality.

Arts for All strengthens and expands UMD’s core arts disciplines—music, theatre, dance, visual art, creative writing, design and more—alongside fields from digital media and interactive design to creative coding. It champions interdisciplinary research and innovation, encouraging all Terps to explore what is possible in an arts-informed university, expanding knowledge and integrating creativity into research and teaching across campus.

Since launching in 2021, Arts for All has grown into a truly campuswide effort, supporting thousands of exhibitions, performances, festivals, workshops, courses, research projects and community events. In doing so, Arts for All invites our entire campus community to meaningfully engage with the arts, sparking important conversations, expanding understanding and kick-starting action.

In hosting a Grammy-award winning composer as an Arts for All Artist-in-Residence, we asked students to compose and produce original works using sound, electronics and voice to explore climate change. Through Quantum & Arts multidisciplinary research projects,  we brought students and faculty across disciplines together to create tangible music, dance and visual depictions of quantum mechanics to educate and translate this emerging field to our wider audience.

With private support, Arts for All will bolster programming and research initiatives like these that bring world-class artists into direct collaboration with every corner of our Terp community, positioning Maryland as a national leader in uniting the arts and tech to address society’s grand challenges.