Experience
Our scholars experience a community-centered atmosphere focusing on artistic, academic, and personal growth. They engage in creative development, community building, peer mentoring, networking, and educational support. The commitment to support our scholars’ passion for the arts is seen in the care provided by the dedicated LAS team of directors and staff, cohort members, current scholars, and alums. Scholars are provided with opportunities that foster their skills, perspective, and imagination to be visionaries, advocates, and leaders in their art.
First-Year Interdisciplinary Arts Seminar
First-year Linehan Artist Scholars attend a seminar every Friday with the Director during the fall and spring semesters. The seminar helps to build community among the first-year students as they share ideas about art and what it means to be an artist. This course requires attending on-campus performances and workshops on and off campus each semester, writing and creating interdisciplinary works that challenge concepts of time, space, and perception.
Art and Live Performance
A central component of the LAS scholar experience is the fall and spring trips to performances and prominent museums in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC. All scholars are required to attend these trips. They always include a museum exhibition and a live performance (rotating between dance, music, and theatre each semester/year).
Professional Field Opportunities
In addition to the countless performance and exhibition opportunities available to all students in the arts, Linehan Artist Scholars frequently participate in faculty creative research. Several Dance Scholars perform with the Baltimore Dance Project, the resident contemporary dance company at UMBC. Music Scholars often perform with the UMBC Symphony, the Percussion Ensemble, the Jazz Ensemble and Ruckus, UMBC’s professional ensemble dedicated to the performance of contemporary music. Linehan Theatre Scholars are often featured in leading roles in the Proscenium and Black Box Theatre productions. Theatre Scholars have performed at the Kennedy Center for the American College Theatre Festival. Our Visual Art Scholars gain valuable professional experience through internships at in-area design companies and the UMBC Imaging Research Center (IRC), a state-of-the-art animation and computer visualization facility.
Research opportunities
UMBC believes that research is important to make big changes in our world. Students have many opportunities to get involved in their own research projects or with peers. Scholars’ participation in faculty research has produced some outstanding results.
The Linehan Summer Research and Study Award
This award supports summer research through study at an established summer workshop, conference, or internship program or through a self-designed program of study with nationally/ internationally recognized professional teachers. Scholars can receive up to $4000.
Undergraduate Research Awards
…provide up to $1,500 to undergraduate students to support their research or creative work with a UMBC faculty mentor on an original project. Students of all years and disciplines are invited to apply. Many Linehan Artist Scholars apply and receive this award.
Study Abroad
Linehan Artist Scholars may also use their scholarship funds to support study abroad. To learn more, visit the UMBC Education Abroad Office.
Residential Living Opportunities: Visual and Performing Arts Living Learning Community
Most first-year Linehan Artist Scholars choose to live in the Visual and Performing Arts Living Learning Community in Harbor Hall. This community of 36 LAS and art-interested students provides a deep connection with other passionate individuals and fosters interdisciplinary collaboration between artists in all fields. The floor is known for the most vibrant and creative impromptu late-night conversations on campus. Residents of the floor also enjoy free admission to a selection of events and performances on and off the campus.
First-year scholars who want to live in the Visual and Performing Arts Living-Learning Community (the VPA LLC) must apply through Residential Life by May 1st.