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OC Arts group to raise awareness for liberal arts

In an effort to create awareness for the college of liberal arts, Chair of Art and Design Jeff Price, along with other members of the college, created OC Arts, a new monthly chapel.

According to Price, the main goals of OC Arts is to bring faith and the arts together in a more cohesive manner, while showing the outside community what the college of liberal arts is all about.

“It’s good to have a dialogue about art and faith and having the students be present during that discussion becomes really a great time to learn, a great time to share knowledge, a great time to share experience,” Price said.

OC Arts is a compilation of the liberal arts majors at Oklahoma Christian University. Other leaders of the group include Dean of the College of Liberal Arts David Lowry, Chair of Language and Literature Cami Agan, Chair of Mass Communication Larry Jurney, Chair of Music Cathy Thompson, Spiritual Life Coordinator Summer Lashley and Interim Dean of the College of Biblical Studies Charles Rix.

Price said after he noticed a lack of organizational promotion between the arts programs at Oklahoma Christian, he brought forward the idea for OC Arts to Lowry and Scott LaMascus, vice president of academic affairs.

Initially, Price said he thought a newsletter to the community would be a good way to achieve his goals. However, they came to the decision to begin the group with a monthly chapel.

“Half the battle is just starting something, getting the ball rolling,” Price said. “Then it will pick up momentum.”

During the thirty minutes every month, students can expect to hear from artists in several fields speak about their work and their faith.

“Having artists come and talk to you guys, not only talk about their art but how their faith interacts with their art, it becomes an important discussion and like I said we don’t always get that chance during our classes to do that,” Price said.

According to Price, a question and answer panel may also be in store students who have questions regarding their future careers and how their faith plays a part in that.

OC Arts had its inaugural chapel on Thursday, Feb. 4 in the Adams Recital Hall. Price said he believes their first event was a success.

“Somebody said that they’ve ‘never seen so many people in the recital hall before,’ so that’s really good,” Price said. “And two or three students came up to me and told me how much they loved it.”

Price said he and the rest of the group hope to eventually move beyond the monthly chapel meeting into something more.

“Some of the things we will be doing is creating things like newsletters and hopefully having activities where we may have things like a carnival, maybe a festival of the arts,” Price said.

Above all, Price said he hopes the chapel – and other future activities put on by OC Arts – inspire the Oklahoma Christian community to become more involved in the college of liberal arts.

“I want it to be a positive experience for both the faculty and staff and the students, and really just make the arts important here because arts are really important in our culture,” Price said. “We’re moving to a time when things like science, engineering, technology and math are very important, but you cannot leave out the arts. The arts remind us that we’re human.”

Price said plans for next month’s chapel are still in the works. According to Price, students, faculty, staff and friends of Oklahoma Christian from any department are welcome to participate in any future OC Arts activities.

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