What is CAAD?

Creative Arts Across Disciplines (CAAD) began at Vassar College as a Mellon Foundation-funded initiative. Through partnerships with other initiatives, programs, departments, and projects, CAAD continues to serve as an experimental laboratory for trying out new models of research, pedagogy, practice, and community engagement that foreground critical making and doing as complementary activities to critical thinking.
Goals that have persisted from the grant include:
- Fostering opportunities for boundary-crossing artistic discovery and creation
- Broadening collaboration within the arts, as well as between the arts and other disciplines
- Enhancing the impact and curricular tie-ins of visiting artist programs
- Deepening the engagement of Vassar students across the curriculum with methods and ideas from the arts

CAAD Summer Student research applications are now open through March 4th
Through a generous donation by Henry Wendt III and Holly P. Wendt ’57, CAAD provides summer program opportunities for students to work together on creative research projects.
Since 2017, CAAD has partnered with the Music Department to produce MODfest.
Events
Featuring over sixty works added to the Loeb Art Center’s collection between 2020–2025, Chronostasia explores various ways artworks can alter our perception of time. To mark the exhibition’s opening, artist Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians) speaks with Vassar’s Molly McGlennen and curator Alyx Raz ’16 about his work.
Free and open to the public
The “Sky Woman Women” project holds space for eighteen women storytellers from Mohawk, Seneca and Tuscarora tribal affiliations (enrolled, unenrolled, and not enrolled), telling and retelling a Haudenosaunee creation story to each other. A Q&A with the artist and featured storytellers follows the screening.
Free and open to the public
Join us for free drop-in family programs on select Sundays this fall. Each date will feature different hands-on art activities inspired by art on view. Activities can be modified for all ages, but are best suited for children 5 and up.
Join us for free drop-in family programs on select Sundays. Each date will feature different hands-on art activities inspired by art on view. Activities can be modified for all ages, but are best suited for children 5 and up.
Join us for free drop-in family programs on select Sundays this fall. Each date will feature different hands-on art activities inspired by art on view. Activities can be modified for all ages, but are best suited for children 5 and up.
Join us for free drop-in family programs on select Sundays this fall. Each date will feature different hands-on art activities inspired by art on view. Activities can be modified for all ages, but are best suited for children 5 and up.