Arts Division Projects

Arts Professional Pathways

The Arts Professional Pathways program connects students with creative and industry professionals to promote careers in the arts. Through advising, mentorship, networking, internships, and matching scholarship funds, we provide students (regardless of financial background) with a clear roadmap to pursue their dreams. Together, we can break down barriers to the creative economy and diversify the next generation of artists and creative professionals.

Arts Dean's Fund for Excellence and Equity

The Arts Dean’s Fund for Excellence and Equity supports socially impactful student research and inclusive arts education. By funding innovative curriculum development, new creative work, and professional development opportunities, the fund helps diversify the pipeline into the arts and empowers the next generation of artists and scholars. This initiative reflects the Arts Division’s commitment to equity, access, and serving California’s evolving student population.

Help Support Humor Force Five!

Humor Force Five encourages skill-building in the areas of both comedy and theater, and share these talents in shows both on and off campus. With your help, we can afford to travel to yearly events and festivals, such as Improv du Jour at UC Berkeley and FRACAS at USC in LA. Your support will also help with funding our biweekly shows and workshops!

Film + Digital Media Visiting Artists

For over a decade, the vibrant Film and Digital Media Visiting Filmmakers program has been bringing one visiting filmmaker per quarter to share their work with our student community. Each visiting filmmaker spends three days on campus, allowing for rich and sustained engagement with our students, including a public screening and discussion of their work, an intimate workshop and one-on-one critique sessions with our students. The filmmakers who are part of this visitor series are internationally renowned, award-winning, and groundbreaking makers, and many students describe these opportunities to see cutting edge new work and to have conversations with these makers as a highlight of their educational experience.

Random With a Purpose The Experiment

We believe that dance is for everyone! Our goal for this production is to feature a cast that reflects UCSC’s diverse student population through a wide range of dance styles and perspectives. We want to encourage exploration and celebration of unconventional ideas and your donations will fund costuming and props that support student creativity.

UCSC Opera

The UCSC Opera Program is a year-long series of classes: Opera Workshop in the fall and winter and UCSC Opera Theater in spring quarter.​Throughout the year, our undergraduate students are given valuable opportunities to learn and perform opera roles on a variety of different scales. Students perform a chamber-length, free opera friendly to audiences of all ages; a scenes program that facilitates exposure to a wide range of operatic repertoire; and a full-scale spring opera with orchestra, full sets, costumes, hair and makeup, and lighting.

Support student learning at the Institute of the Arts and Sciences!

This Giving Day, please support arts education and internships at the Institute of the Arts and Sciences. Located in the city of Santa Cruz, the IAS is the Central Coast’s premier university art and research center. Through groundbreaking, national-caliber art exhibitions and social justice initiatives, the IAS creatively educates students and the public about urgent issues impacting our society. Your gift will help keep our programming and exhibitions free for all and support paid student internships, giving students hands-on experience in arts careers.

Any gift, no matter how small, will help enliven the arts and the student experience at UC Santa Cruz.

Pacific Art & Visual Studies—Support AAPI Art & History

The Pacific Art & Visual Studies (PAVS) Fund advances innovative approaches to the study of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) arts, cultures, and histories. The PAVS mission is to support educational and professional development for students (paid internships, workshops, guest speakers, field trips). It also enables student-faculty research collaborations and the publication of Pacific Arts, the only international open access journal dedicated to Pacific Islands art (check out our latest issue here!). UCSC is the only institution in the U.S. that offers a full undergraduate curriculum and PhD program in Pacific Islands visual studies as well as a PhD program in Asian American/Diaspora visual studies. Your support will have a huge impact on AAPI arts in higher education!

John Coltrane Jazz enrichment fund

This fund will help the department invite more visiting artists to teach, collaborate and perform with our students and faculty; and to support students with scholarships to support their musical lessons, festival participation, competitions,  and non-local performances. Especially looking towards funding UCSC Jazz Big Band to Europe in 2027 to perform at the Vienne Jazz Festival (France), Montreux Jazz Festival (Switzerland), and the Umbria Jazz Festival (Italy), with guest artist Jon Faddis.

From Santa Cruz to Center Stage: Back Raas Rangeela!

UCSC Raas Rangeela is a dynamic Indian dance team that brings the energy of Garba-Raas to stages across the nation. We’re fundraising to cover travel, competition fees, handmade costumes, and props — all essential to sharing our culture and representing UCSC with pride. Your support helps us uplift tradition, build community, and keep the Banana Slug spirit twirling strong. Help us bring the beat to the world — one performance at a time!

Cloud 9 A Cappella

We are UCSC's oldest and longest running a cappella group. We hope to raise money to put in better shows for you all!

HELP MARIACHI ETERNO DE UCSC ATTEND A CONFERENCE!!

Mariachi Eterno de UCSC provides a community for students of diverse backgrounds and for all varying levels of experience with mariachi music. We are a group that encourages learning and gaining experience through on-campus and off-campus performances, workshops, and conferences.

We've previously been able to travel to UC Berkeley to participate in a conference and workshop, and we used the funds from Giving Day to cover travel expenses for our members. This experience was a great way to interact with other musicians and gain access to experienced teachers. By choosing to donate to our group on Giving Day, you're creating an opportunity for us to grow as musicians, thank you!

EyeCandy Film Journal Volume 36

EyeCandy Film Journal is an organization affiliated with SOMECA. We are a student led organization that is devoted to highlighting students' passion for film, television, and visual media. We are raising funds so we can successfully print our 36th edition of our publication for individuals around campus to read and be inspired by other students. Our publication will create an impact on our community as it is vital for us to personally connect with the articles we distribute and explore narratives that are underrepresented in our society. Our goal is to uplift the voices of students while highlighting their passion for media.

Fruitcake Volume 11

Fruitcake Magazine is dedicated to the publication and promotion of student artists of all skill levels and academic backgrounds. All printable mediums are supported. Since 2015, Fruitcake Magazine has grown from a small art magazine into a thriving network of student artists in pursuit of education and exploration of the arts and come this academic year we will be producing the eleventh volume.

Film Production Coalition

Film Production Coalition aims to create a collaborative environment that fosters creativity, community, and growth. We are open to everyone on the UCSC campus, film and non-film majors, regardless of experience. We create a space for creatively driven students to grow as they learn to communicate, work through differences, and develop technical skills. Each filming group creates a short film from start to finish throughout the quarter. At the end of our 10 weeks, we celebrate our hard work at a quarterly film festival. At FPC we live and breathe filmmaking and do so through our community.

Give to Shutterslug!

Shutterslug is a student photography organization committed to creating a welcoming space for UCSC students to explore photography as an art. Our primary yearly project is Lightleak photography magazine. We open Lightleak submissions during each winter quarter, allowing any and all students to submit their original photographs for publication in our professionally printed magazine. We are going into our eighth year of production for Lightleak photography magazine! Your donations will help Shutterslug produce another great magazine, and allow hundreds of student photographers the opportunity to see their work in print.