Serving the Church Through the Arts

As the preeminent Catholic center for music study in this country, the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art is recognized for perpetuating the Church's historical role in uplifting the human spirit through the arts.

It serves the cultural needs of the Church, nation, and region through the training of men and women by an outstanding faculty of artists/scholars. Together, faculty and students are creatively engaged in research, performance, composition, and teaching, always striving "... to find cultural treasures both old and new ..." [Apostolic Constitution of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II on Catholic Universities, August 15, 1990.]

Creating Future Leaders

Through its comprehensive graduate and undergraduate programs, the departments are committed to excellence. The departments provide a liberal education for undergraduates and the finest professional training for all its students. It is committed to graduate education and offers the highest quality instruction to assist in the preparation of creative artists and teachers who upon graduation take their place as leaders in the world community.

Latin American Center for Graduate Studies in Music

The Latin American Center for Graduate Studies is of much importance in music because it is the only such center in the United States, which offers a concentration in Latin American music within the graduate degree programs. In addition to the training of artists and scholars, the departments directly serve the Church by training liturgical musicians to assume leadership within the parishes, seminaries, and dioceses of the world. The departments strengthen the Church and the nation by developing leaders in music education capable of awakening cultural appreciation and values in the students of parochial and public school systems.

Engaging the Campus Community

The departments offer the university community opportunities to participate in its performing organizations and concerts. It provides humanities and elective courses in music to all students in the university and seeks to collaborate further in interdisciplinary studies. It also serves the campus community as a resource when needed for official functions. Convinced that the departments contribute "to the development of Christian culture and human progress," they consistently provide the campus and this nation with musical activities which reflect the excellence of the departments and this university, further demonstrating the commitment to the arts held traditionally by the Church. (Quotations are from the Apostolic Constitution of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II on Catholic Universities, August 15, 1990.)