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Vanderbilt University will open a new arts college in San Francisco in fall 2027, backed by a $75 million donation from Nvidia co-founder Jensen Huang and his wife, Lori Huang, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
The Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang College of Art, Architecture and Design will be part of the 4.5-acre site in Potrero Hill that the university is acquiring from the California College of Arts, which is set to close after 120 years. The new college will offer undergraduate and graduate programs that combine studio practice with engineering, entrepreneurship and technologies like artificial intelligence, the Chronicle reported.
“The academic approach will be distinctive, leveraging the latest breakthroughs in advanced technology and grounding students in the foundational domains of art and architecture; developing technical mastery and visual sophistication through studio practice and design labs; and building business and technical fluency through innovation and engineering,” the university said in a statement.
Vanderbilt professor and artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons described the moment as “another moment of fire, in the middle of a spark with this technology, with this new language,” according to the Chronicle.
The donation prompted more than $30 million in additional contributions from Bay Area investors and Vanderbilt alumni and parents. Vanderbilt said it plans to enroll roughly 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students after next year’s closure of the California College of Arts, which trained painters, sculptors and architects in San Francisco and the East Bay. As CCA directs students toward transfer options to other institutions, Vanderbilt said it cannot commit to enrolled CCA students who have not yet graduated.
The closure of CCA, along with the 2022 shutdown of the San Francisco Art Institute, further reduces the number of independent art schools in the city.
