Explore our vibrant and creative Cornish community at Seattle University. Here, we combine rigorous arts education with a supportive, inclusive environment that nurtures your growth as both an artist and a person. We’re committed to helping you develop your creative voice, pursue your passions, and prepare for a meaningful career in the arts.

Our college began in 1914 as the Cornish School of Music, founded by Nellie Cornish in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. Within a few years, it became The Cornish School, expanding its reach beyond music and into dance, theater and visual arts. In 1955, the institution transitioned into the Cornish School of Allied Arts, reflecting its growing reputation as a hub for creative education. Following the college’s accreditation, it was briefly named the Cornish Institute until it was chartered as Cornish College of the Arts in 1986.

In 2003, we established our campus in South Lake Union, and in 2015, opened Cornish Commons, our LEED Gold residence hall, across from our Main Campus Center. Today, as Cornish College of the Arts at Seattle University, we continue to advance Nellie Cornish’s belief in learning through all of the arts, building on more than a century of experimentation, collaboration, and innovation. Learn more about our history.

Cornish is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (1977). Cornish is licensed to confer degrees by the State of Washington.

Cornish College of the Arts is committed to the following core values:

• Providing an educational environment that offers personalized attention and acknowledges the whole person, cultivating artistic potential and individual voice.
• Supplying a rigorous and balanced arts education that encourages experimentation and innovation while providing a solid grounding in technique and craft.
• Providing a fine arts education that develops imaginative and critical thinking capacities grounded in knowledge, producing not just trained, but educated artists.
• Creating a college environment that demonstrates respect for equal opportunity for all persons and the inclusion of diversity in the curriculum and in the ranks of the student body, faculty and staff.
• Offering a faculty of practicing artists whose accomplishments serve to inspire and inform students seeking a professional career in the arts.
• Contributing meaningfully to the cultural vitality of the community.