What ‘Open Inquiry: UC Arts’ reveals about the future of arts education

A new exhibition of work by recent University of California alumni highlights UC's artistic legacy and shows California's world-class public university is ready to step in as art schools across the country disappear.

Students across the nation are finding that opportunities to get a degree in the arts are dwindling. In the past several years, several prestigious arts and design universities have closed, including in California, where the California College of the Arts, San Francisco Art Institute, and Mills College have shut their doors.

All the more important, then, that UC's doors are open - and the arts are more popular than ever.

On March 22, three deans from UC arts programs gathered to discuss arts education, surrounded by the works of young alumni as part of a new show, "Open Inquiry: UC Arts," hosted by the Sausalito Center for the Arts until April 12, 2026. Curated by Ginny Duncan, formerly of UC Davis' Manetti Shrem Museum, and UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture Board member Jennifer Bailey Wechsler - herself a UC Berkeley and UCLA alumna - the show highlights the arts as a necessary form of public engagement in which UC students are as relevant and successful as ever.

From left to right, Lionel Popkin, interim dean of the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture, Noah Guynn, associate dean of the faculty in the Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies, Sara Guyer, dean of the Division of Arts & Humanities at UC Berkeley, and Will Kane, executive director of news and media relations at UC Berkeley, take part in the "From Studio to Society: The Value and Future of UC Art Education" discussion. Photo by Mike Lewis

Three of the fastest-growing majors at UC Berkeley are not related to science or technology, noted Sara Guyer, dean of the Division of Arts & Humanities at UC Berkeley, but music, art practice, and film & media studies. Students are actively seeking an embodied research experience that cuts across all fields of research and open inquiry. "What defines Berkeley's signature is that the arts are not contained, they are embedded across the university. Artists here are in constant dialogue with scholars in every field, and that exchange doesn't just inform their work; it reshapes how knowledge itself is produced," she told panel moderator Will Kane, executive director of news and media relations at UC Berkeley. "In a world dominated by automation and artificial intelligence, our students will be even better prepared for careers because they've been trained to think in an open-ended way."

Arts are thriving across UC campuses

Students in the studio arts are anxious not to be in front of a screen, added UC Davis' Noah Guynn, associate dean of the faculty in the Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies. Applications for MFA programs at UC Davis are dramatically on the rise, he says, as the campus expands its ability to support arts programming thanks to Maria Manetti Shrem, who gave the campus one of the largest private gifts to an artist studio program in the history of the U.S. "There is a great deal of heartache in the community for the loss of these private institutions for the arts," Guynn said. "But we're very proud of the fact that we serve the public and then maintain really healthy arts programs."

Lionel Popkin, interim dean of the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture, noted the many ways in which UC campuses can serve the public. "What's amazing about the West Coast is that exceptional artists want to teach, to be part of the discourse and move fields forward. If there are fewer art schools around, there are fewer people to invent, and that's bad for all of us."

Across UC campuses, arts offerings are a boon to communities - UCLA's Fowler and Hammer Museums alongside CAP UCLA's performing arts series, for example, offer cutting-edge arts programming to half a million visitors each year. "The porousness between the community and the campus is crucial to the vibrancy of the city," Popkin said.

"Although so many art schools across the state and the country are closing, the University of California has a thriving art school culture people may not fully realize is here," said Open Inquiry curator Jennifer Bailey Wechsler. "The young alumni of these art programs we are featuring have signed on with galleries, have shown in the most prestigious fairs, like Frieze, and receive mentorship from some of California's most notable artists. University of California arts education is more important than ever."

An opening reception for "Open Inquiry" was held at the Sausalito Center for the Arts on March 21, 2026. Photo by Mike Lewis Julia Haft-Candell, UC Davis artist, next to her piece during the opening reception on March 21. Photo by Mike Lewis. Renowned Los Angeles artist Roger Herman, professor emeritus at the UCLA Department of Art, has work on exhibit alongside the young alumni. Photo by Mike Lewis UC Berkeley alum Ahn Lee, "Silkworm," 2025 UC Davis alum Helia Pouyanfar, "Addendum," 2025 Photo by Minoosh Zomorodinia UC Davis alum Mercy Hawkins, "Melting Ice," 2023