Like every other year, the month of April means that students in the College of Visual and Performing Arts are busier than ever. But unlike before, the public will now be able to take a peek at some of their projects.

The college is hosting “Arts in April”: 43 events spread throughout the month to celebrate and showcase student talents. The events range from lectures, exhibits and galleries to plays and recitals.

“The idea behind ‘Arts in April’ was to kind of celebrate what our faculty and what our graduate and undergraduate students are doing in pursuit of education, learning and some of the scholarship, research and opportunity they engage in,” said Kenneth Johnson, chair of VPA’s faculty council.

Professors in VPA noticed that April was a particularly busy month for student performances, said Margie Hughto, a faculty council member and the “Arts in April” committee head. They decided to capitalize on this by inviting the public and the university community to share in the experience.

“People don’t always realize all the events that are going on in the College of Visual and Performing Arts and it would be nice to let people know more about that,” she said. “April is a big month when a lot of things come together … we wanted to let our fellow, everybody at the university know more of what’s going on.”

The events will help students gain real-world experience by presenting their talents through their projects, Hughto said.

Students in VPA organize these events every year as a culmination of their work, but this year, the faculty thought publicizing them was important. Most of the events are usually kept in-house.

“All of us do this all the time,” Hughto said. “We just don’t advertise it very well.”

Hughto, with the help of other staff, promoted events by making posters and creating a website with a full calendar listing of the events. She also asked the Central New York Regional Transportation Authority to have “SU Arts in April” scroll across Centro buses’ front screens, similar to how “Beat Duke” scrolled before the Feb. 1 men’s basketball game against Duke.

Organizers hope that people outside VPA can gain an understanding of what the school does while getting exposed to new opportunities.

“In a sense then, some might say ‘I didn’t know that was being offered here’ or ‘I didn’t know it was possible to take something like this in a course’ in terms of what they might be interested in,” Johnson said.

The committee expects that events with the most student involvement will draw the most interest.

“The events that celebrate the work of our graduating seniors and graduate students are always quite popular,” said Erica Blust, director of communications for VPA. “No matter what area of the arts you are interested in, we have an event for you.”

For Hughto, this is a chance to applaud the talent of students that sometimes go unrecognized.

Said Hughto: “All of us are very, very proud of our students. Often we’re so busy making the art, perfecting the play, showing all the clothes, that we don’t often probably find the time to promote all of this as well as it could be promoted. I think this ‘Arts in April’ may help to fill in that void.”

Published on April 10, 2014 at 12:54 am

Contact Emma: ekbaty@syr.edu