CC student resources
Welcome to the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College! The FAC serves Colorado College students and the Colorado Springs community through its three arts entities: a museum, an art school, and a theatre.
As a CC student, you are a member at the FAC, so you are eligible for all the perks that come with membership such as free admission to the museum, access to monthly membership talks, and more!
The FAC is located on the southeast corner of campus, just steps away from El Pomar Sports Center and Monument Valley Park. See Fine Arts Center location in relation to the rest of campus
Museum
At the Fine Arts Center Museum, we seek to provide visitor-centered experiences through visual literacy, active learning, and critical pedagogy. Unique from the typical museum experience, we strive to create welcoming experiences so every student can share their perspectives and engage in challenging dialogue within the museum. The museum is meant to be a space of learning, reflection, inspiration, and much more, and we foster those opportunities whenever we can.
Watch this informational video about how you can virtually engage with the museum prior to your arrival to campus:
Introduction to the FAC
Your Gold Card gives you FREE access to visit the museum.
Keep scrolling to see other ways you can engage with the museum as a CC student.
Class Visits in the Galleries
The museum team actively engages with faculty and students at CC by providing cross-disciplinary instruction to enhance course content through the arts. We work with students and faculty in all departments to enrich the learning experience during the block through Objects-Based Learning and discussion.
Left: Students work directly with the artworks to build observational, interpretive, and critical thinking skills.
Check out the video below highlight featuring one of our many academic engagement collaborations:
Academic Engagement Projects
Collections Class Visits
Complementary to engagements in our gallery spaces, we also offer guided explorations through our museum collection of over 20,000 objects. With support from our education, curatorial, and collections staff, these experiences offer a deeper look into museum practices to offer reflective possibilities for the future.
Right: Students engage in object-based looking exercises in the rack room.
Below: Students learn about the object accessioning process in the collections classroom.
Artist, Scholar, and Curator Talks
In conjunction with our special exhibitions, we often host virtual and in-person talks with our artists, curators, and scholars. These opportunities offer an additional avenue to explore concepts and themes present in the art in relation to our own lives and learning.
These talks provide deeper explorations into exhibitions and artworks featured in the FAC Museum, like this one, Edges of the Ephemeral, installed in the FAC Museum by former Mellon Museum Artist in Residence, Anna Tsouhlarakis. If you want to hear more about her work, watch To Bind or To Burn: A Conversation With the Artist
Edges of the Ephemeral
Academic Support
The FAC Museum team finds other ways to serve as an academic support system to students at CC. We offer various programming that supports our students in an amalgam of ways. Here are some highlights from our past academic year:
Night at the Museum — Winter Start Orientation
The Museum welcomed the first in-person programming for Winter Start Students in February. Student Guides led interactive experiences in which students demonstrated their interpretations of specific artworks with their bodies.
Below & right: Winter start CC students reinterpret artworks in our gallery spaces.
Art in Action — Virtual Program
In a virtual project inspired and created by our Student Guides, CC students worked together in small groups over to recreate artworks in our eMuseum digital collection.
Left: Check out some of the creations next to the original works.
Participate in our Art in Action project and create your own design
A Deep Dive into the Work of Floyd Tunson
Black History Month Programming
Museum staff and students created an exploration working specifically with the works of one of our local Black artists featured in the permanent collection, Floyd Tunson. Together, we explored issues of equity, social justice, and structural racism, as well as representation in the museum.
See what you can find in the image below:
- What’s going on in this artwork?
- What do you see that makes you say that?
- What more can you find?
Image: Floyd Tunson, Hearts and Minds, 1993-1995, Mixed media
Student Employment Opportunities
The FAC Museum employs around 20-30 CC students throughout the academic year and summer through our paid Student Guide and Internship programs. We offer specialized training and professional experiences in the fields of collections, curatorial, education, and exhibits. Learn more about student employment
Student Guide Program
Student Guides are CC students who work to promote and foster meaningful visitor interactions in the galleries. The Student Guides seek to increase accessibility, invited visitor voices, and promote community conversations surrounding the artwork.
Student Guide Program
Mellon Museum Internship Program
Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Grant, museum interns support work in all four departments within the museum: collections, curatorial, education, and exhibits. CC students gain professional experience working in the museum field under the supervision of museum professionals.
Bemis School of Art
The Fine Arts Center’s Bemis School of Art offers a variety of co-curricular, not-for-credit, studio arts opportunities for interested CC students. From block-long classes to 1-hour workshops, since the first days of the merge between the FAC and the College, Bemis has offered and continues to offer several different ways for students to experience safe, exciting, and professional studio arts classes.
Through reconfiguring our 10 studio classrooms, we have expanded our in-person and virtual student offerings to provide safe learning opportunities. We will continue to safely get studio art supplies, equipment, and instruction into the hands and minds of both on- and off-campus students. Whether used as stress-relief, present-making, or creating projects for academic block classes, these hands-on experiences are designed to allow students to both thrive and decompress from the day-to-day issues of college life.
Keep your eyes open for registration announcements in the student daily digest.
Clay Wheel Throwing Classes
These block-long classes meet Monday/Wednesday afternoons of each block. Beginner processes are always covered, and there is room for students of all skill-levels to grow too. From wedging the clay to spinning the pots to firing the pieces, students learn a variety of interesting and transferable skills.
Winter Orientation students settle in and members of the Black Student Union create a piece for Worner Center.
CC Collaborative Clay Club
These studio sessions can be scheduled one day at time and meet Tuesday/Thursday afternoons throughout the entire school year. Wheel throwing, sculpting, or anything in-between, these casual experiences can be had within or across the academic blocks. Email the club president, Martrice Ellis to schedule a time slot.
From wet clay to fired sculptures, students can explore every facet or just their favorite parts.
Block Break Studio Arts Mini-Workshops
These small classes and workshops occur on campus during each block break. Sessions have included: Drawing, Painting, Sculpting, Glassblowing, Wheel Throwing, Mosaics, Artivism, Glass Fusing, and Jewelry.
Team Building/Hall Bonding Sessions
For Residence Halls, CC Student Organizations, Living/Learning Communities, and other Student Groups these sessions are available in a variety of mediums. Weekends, mornings, or after dinnertime, these are scheduled whenever is most convenient.
Community Classes
If it works for your schedule, consider signing up for a class with us!
Browse catalog of classesMake It at Home (or dorm room!) Videos
Want to try creative printing and painting projects with things you might already have on hand?
At home tutorials on FAC ConnectPerforming Arts
The award-winning and critically acclaimed Fine Arts Center Theatre Company produces an annual season of musicals, comedies, and dramas and has gained a reputation for high-quality productions and Colorado premieres of new American work. See the performances schedule
CC students are eligible for FREE rush tickets within 1 hour of the show. Students can also purchase discounted tickets in advance. For more information, call the box office at (719) 634-5583 or email at fac@coloradocollege.edu.