The College’s founder Nellie Cornish, and the many teaching artists who followed her, believed in education through exposure to all the arts.

Begun in 1914, Cornish College of the Arts offers Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees in the performing and visual arts and a Bachelor of Music degree, along with year-round public programs and extension courses.

The College’s founder Nellie Cornish, and the many teaching artists who have followed her, believed in education through exposure to all of the arts. This approach continues to inform the College’s curricula and community involvement today. Our holistic approach to education promotes experimentation, discovery, and innovation, giving artists the creative intelligence they need to thrive in their disciplines and beyond. We have been inspiring artistic and academic excellence for more than 100 years.

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, staff and Board of Trustees.
• 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.

Cornish College of the Arts is enriched by a diverse population of students, bringing their unique personalities and voices to their art forms. Placed in the vibrant city of Seattle, artists thrive among the wide variety of people and broad spectrum of creative thought that surrounds us. The College supports and engages the many cultural, personal, and spiritual facets of our community.

Cornish commits to demonstrating respect for individual expression and integrity; to promoting the equality of opportunity and rights of all persons within the community and to actively encouraging and maintaining the representation and inclusion of diverse cultures and backgrounds within the student body, faculty, staff and curricula.

We believe that diversity refers to a number of human qualities and characteristics. National origin, race, gender, age, socioeconomic background, religion, sexual orientation and disabilities are characteristics that combine in unique ways, forming the multiple identities we all hold. Those diverse characteristics contribute positively to the environment of Cornish and to an education that accurately reflects and contributes to the complex interplay of art, culture and society.

We hold ourselves responsible to fulfill the mission of Cornish by preparing students “to contribute to society as artists, citizens, and innovators,” and believe that the mission is best served by actively cultivating a positive environment in which to explore and express the diverse perspectives of a pluralistic society.