Business Training for Artists?

SARASOTA, Fla., Feb. 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — For the first time, a major art and design college has decided that artists should also learn business.

Ringling College of Art and Design, one of the half-dozen largest private art colleges in the country, launched a new BA program — “The Business of Art & Design.”

Business is not the only new idea at the 100-building institution close to downtown Sarasota. The college is America’s #1 in teaching computer animation. It has 10 million dollars worth of computers that serve animation and its other 13 majors. Ringling’s computer to student ratio is 2.2:1 and it provides each of its 1,200+ students a fully-loaded MacBook pro notebook computer when they begin. The college’s computer power equals that at NASA — Sun Computers delivered one big system to NASA, and the second to Ringling.

Ringling’s major courses grew from six to 14 in the past three years.

The new BA course, The Business of Art & Design, aims to help graduates understand business, and how better to run businesses if they strike out on their own. The program contains echoes of Harvard Business School. To the knowledge of the college, there is no comparable course among other art and design schools.

The new ideas have a payoff. Eighty-five percent of Ringling’s graduates are working. And they are earning, in their first jobs, $35,000 to $70,000 or more. This disproves “the myth of the starving artist” says its president Dr. Larry R. Thompson. “It’s not just about creative business. It’s about making any business creative.”

That’s partly the result of an energetic career program, and partly because Ringling attracts lots of recruiters. The average art and design college, says Ringling, is visited by a dozen or so recruiters. Ringling netted 50 this year from institutions like American Greetings, Apple Computer, the Central Intelligence Agency, CNN, Disney, DreamWorks, Electronic Arts, ESPN, Hallmark Cards, and LucasArts Entertainment.

The college is more than 77 years old, having been founded in 1931.

Ringling College is located at 2700 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota FL 34234. Telephone 941/359-7594. Email clange@ringling.edu.

SOURCE Ringling College of Art and Design