FAQ

If you are a Design student, the answer is ‘yes’. If you are in one of our other degree plans, the answer is ‘maybe’, or 'if you prefer'. For Design students almost all of your coursework will be done in computer. We do have 55 iMacs in the department, for you to use in class or in the VRC, but a lot of your coursework will be done on your own time, outside of class. Also, you will be able to work much more quickly with your own computer, as your settings and parameters in software, such as Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, will stay the same in your computer, rather than having to set up one of our computers each time you use it. See specifications needed. Please note that if you are eligible for Financial Aid you can work with the Financial Aid Office on campus to extend your aid to the cost of a laptop. Also, the Financial Aid Office can help you organise loans, if you are eligible, to cover the cost of a laptop. If you have any further questions please reach out to the full-time design Professors, Kurt Collins, Andrew Oakes, Taylor Moon, Rob Ray, or Beth Steffel.

You can get advice on which classes to take, how you are doing in your studies, as well as career advice and advice on post-graduate study, from our full-time faculty as well as from the professional and peer advisors in CSUSB's Advising Office. 

• Art History - Dr. Jane Chin Davidson 
• Design - Kurt Collins, Taylor Moon, Andrew Oakes, Rob Ray, or Professor Beth Steffel
• Studio Art - Katherine Gray, Edward Gomez, Thomas McGovern, Alison Ragguette, or Bradley Spence 
• Art Education – Meng-Jung Yang

For contact details, visit our "Our Team" page.

If you have a really tricky problem please contact the Chair of the Department of Art & Design, Professor Katherine Gray. 

The best place to look is the online schedule of courses:

• Go to > https://www.csusb.edu/ 
• Click on > ACADEMICS 
• Then CLICK on > CLASS SCHEDULE 
• Then > select the term, the campus, and the department 
• Click > SUBMIT 

You will see a long list of every course being offered by our department that semester. In this list, you can see when and where the class will take place, who the instructor is, and how many seats are available. This is helpful when you are enrolling. 

The CSUSB Bulletin of Courses is the best place to start.

Here you can search by department, by different majors, or by courses. You can find out which courses are required in a major or minor, which prerequisites a particular course has, if it can be repeated for credit, and a description of the course. 

Also, on this website we have a page of ‘Roadmaps’ that details which classes you should take and potentially when you should take them. 

You can also talk with your faculty advisor in the Department of Art & Design or with a professional advisor or a peer advisor in CAL Advising for this information. 

The Visual Resource Center (VRC) provides reference help and facilitates access to art, art history, design, and visual studies resources for teaching, learning, and research in the Department of Art & Design. We support students and faculty through: 

• A digital image and multimedia collection representing student work, images used for teaching, videos from the Visiting Artist program, and other content reflecting the Department’s research and curriculum.
• Develop and update research guides in support of visual arts research.
• Maintained library collection of books, magazines, journals, and exhibition catalogs specially tailored to the curriculum of the department.
• The Center houses printers, a graphic arts scanner, iMacs, desktop computers with Adobe Creative Cloud software, and much more, projectors, iPads, and Occipital Structure 3D Sensor.

Please explore our resources on our website, and do not hesitate to contact us for further help with your art, art history, and design research. 

VRC, Visual Arts Building, room VA 201

Phone: (909) 537-5810

Email: vrc@csusb.edu

Many of our degree plans require an internship, but some students want to do internships as a substitution for a required class, or as an extra just because it’s a useful thing to do to prepare for life after university. 

We have many partners across campus looking for interns, as well as partners off campus around the locale and region. 

Plan ahead!!!

You will need to identify a host (a company, a gallery, a museum, an office or unit on campus, etc.), and begin arranging with them when it might happen and what duties you will likely perform. 

Next, the host should contact both the Chair of the Department of Art & Design, Professor Katherine Gray, and a representative from the CSUSB Careers Center. This is important because the host needs to be registered with CSUSB’s Careers Center, especially if they are off campus – for legal reasons and for your safety. 

Then you should complete the online internship application form.

You can do an internship for between 1 and 3 units of college credit. Typically, 1 unit approximates to 45 hours spent working in the internship (i.e. 3 hours a week in a fifteen week semester). 

Be sure to also pick up the evaluations forms from our main office VA105.

At the end of your internship you will need to fill one of these out to evaluate your host, and your host will need to fill out the other to evaluate your performance. You must turn these in to the main office VA105 at the end of the semester to receive your grade (CR/no-CR) credit or no-credit. 

VA105 (Visual Arts Building, room 105) Enter the VA Building via the main lobby. Look for the bronze Peacock Statue, and the door to VA105 is on the left. 

Course substitutions are now easier than ever: 

First, you should talk to your faculty advisor in the Department of Art & Design, or a professional advisor.

Then ask that member of our team to email the Chair of the Department of Art & Design, Professor Katherine Gray with all the details.

The details must include your name, coyote ID, your degree plan, the course(s) to be swapped out, the course(s) to be swapped in (plus units), and the semester in which you will be taking the swapped in course.

That’s it! Easy!

PLEASE NOTE: For many transfer students, courses from junior college can sometimes end up in your 'Unused Electives' area of the PAWS report. Please check your PAWS report for any courses that you took at junior college which you think may fulfill requirements in your major, and contact the Chair of Department to request that they review and change these.

For each of your classes in the Department of Art & Design you will pay either a $13.50 supplemental fee for some classes or a $58.50 supplemental fee for others. 

This money goes towards paying for materials that you use in classes, for instructional student assistants, software on computers in the VA building available for your use, visiting artists, as well as a range of materials in the VRC (Visual Resources Center). 

Because we buy materials and software in bulk and we get great deals and discounts, you will receive more than $13.50 or $58.50 worth of materials, etc. to make your work in your classes with us. 

We exhibit art and design work by current students and alumni in our galleries in the Visual Arts Building and around campus. 

To apply to have an exhibition in one of our galleries, or to exhibit as part of Art on Campus, please download the Exhibition Proposal Form.

Please plan ahead. We are always working six months or more in advance with exhibitions. 

Yes, so long as you are registered in one or more Department of Art & Design courses, or if you are a registered major in the Department of Art & Design, you can use the studios, workshops, and the VRC (Visual Resources Center) any time you are not in class, so long as a class isn’t taking place at that time. 

The VA building is open from 8am-10pm Monday to Friday, and at the weekends you can call the Building Monitor to open up a classroom or studio for you (please see the posters in the VA Building for the number to call).

Remember to have your Coyote One card and/or other ID that proves you are a student here, especially at weekends and in the evenings, as the Campus Police Patrol the building for your safety and they sometimes ask who people are in the building late at night and on Saturdays and Sundays.