Students benefit from Ithaca College’s broad liberal arts education as well as conservatory-style training—a combination we’ve been evolving since our founding by violinist William Egbert in 1892. Five years later, in 1897, the affiliated Williams’s School of Expression and Dramatic Art launched with the aim “to foster and spread the highest known truths in the departments of arts lying within its scope; and which should be an active agent in widening the field affected by their refining and ennobling influence.” The school brought a new mode of educating, engaging, and empowering students through a unique blend of academic theory, demanding practice, and life-changing opportunities for performance.
Today, we continue to advocate for the importance of the arts and continually evolving methods—specifically our programs in Music, Theatre, and Dance—within the context of building community. In our programs, you’ll be supported as you balance your academic responsibilities with personal needs—opening the door for healthy working habits as well as positive changes in the industry.
IC's distinctive integrative core curriculum challenges you to consider complex problems from multiple perspectives—helping you build valuable analytical and problem-solving skills that are critical to your future success—whether on stage or in the classroom or in myriad related fields to which those skills are readily transferable.
Join a Community of Change-Makers
A home for passionate creators, leaders and performers, the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance empowers students on their path and in their life. The premiere hub for progress in the performing arts, students reimagine and reinvent the future through support, rigor, expert instruction and community.
Look inside the Whalen Center for Music.
Look inside The Dillingham Center for Theatre and Dance