Ringling College of Art and Design recognizes that artists and designers play a significant role in society. The College's primary mission is to provide programs leading to degrees that prepare students to be discerning visual thinkers and ethical practitioners in chosen area of art & design.
Ringling College of Art and Design is a private, not-for-profit, fully accredited college in Sarasota, Florida. Ringling is recognized as being among the best and most innovative visual arts colleges in the United States, as well as a leader in the use of technology in the arts. With a better than 2:1 student to computer ratio, Ringling Colleges computer infrastructure rivals even that of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
U.S. News and World report featured Ringling College in its 2010 Americas Best Colleges Guide and Imagine FX noted Ringling College as the #1 digital arts college program in the world that same year. In 2006, BusinessWeek named the College one of the top 60 Design Schools in the world, and one of only 10 in the entire United States. In March 2007, and again in November 2007, its Computer Animation program has been ranked #1 in North America by the UKs acclaimed 3D World magazine.
Ringling College of Art and Design offers Bachelors degree programs in 14 majors: Advertising Design, Business of Art & Design, Computer Animation, Digital Filmmaking, Fine Arts, Game Art & Design, Graphic Design, Illustration, Interior Design, Motion Design, Painting, Photography & Digital Imaging, Printmaking, and Sculpture.
Ringling realizes visual arts professionals must understand diverse aspects of past and present cultures, and develop their capacity for creative expression and effective communication. Ringlings curriculum, therefore, balances the teaching of technical knowledge and skills with the development of critical, conceptual, and creative abilities and supports courses that provide historical, multicultural, global, and future perspectives. Ringling faculty consists of professionally active and teaching-oriented artists, designers, and scholars.
Ringling College of Art and Design strives to enroll both full-time and part-time students from diverse backgrounds who intend to become professionals in the visual arts. Through its policies and practices, the College supports excellence in teaching and fosters the aesthetic, intellectual, professional, personal, and social development of its students. Academic programs and advising, career services, and an extensive co-curricular student life program prepare students for an art or design profession, or when appropriate, for continued studies on the graduate level.
In addition to its degree program, Ringling College offers courses, lectures, exhibitions, and other art-related services to the local and regional community through its gallery, library, and community service programs.