The fall of 2005 saw an exciting change within the college’s Department of Theatre. It became the School of Theatre and Film to reflect the expanding Bachelor of Arts degree programs offered in film and media. This new program, which will be fully operational in fall 2006, recognizes both a long-standing and clearly articulated need by students and the importance of linking to the West Coast film industry.
The multidisciplinary B.A. in film is offered by the Herberger College of Fine Arts and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and includes a shared core of classes in each. There are two distinctly different concentrations: a film and media studies concentration provided by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, which began in the fall of 2005, and a film and media production concentration provided by the Herberger College Department of Theatre, beginning in fall 2006.
“ASU film students now will be able to enter the workplace with a sophisticated grasp of national, popular and new media,” explained Linda Essig, director of the School of Theatre and Film. “The production concentration will train undergraduate students for careers in the entertainment industry as screenwriters, directors, cinematographers, editors and producers.”
The digital revolution and broadening media industry offer significant career opportunities. The curriculum in both colleges will provide students with the high level of visual literacy necessary to understand and actively contribute to the media-saturated world in which they live and work.
Interest in developing a film degree program at ASU has been growing over the past few years. The ASU Filmmakers Association, a student film production group on the ASU Tempe campus, has more than 200 members. The group recently received a $2,400 grant from the Undergraduate Student Government Senate to seed the association’s inaugural student film festival in May 2006.
The School of Theatre and Film provides a comprehensive range of courses in performance and directing, design and production, new work development, theatre and performance studies, film and theatre for youth.
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is established. By 2006, it will have grown to include partnerships at 46 sites, including ArtsBridge, a collaboration among 14 universities in the country partnering with public schools to provide quality K-12 arts education. 
The college is named The Katherine K. Herberger College of Fine Arts in recognition of Valley philanthropist Kax Herberger. Her $12 million was the largest personal gift given to the university at the time. Photo: Paolo Vescia. 
Kurt Weiser (art) is named college’s third Regents’ Professor.
Kurt Weiser, Continental Drift, 2005. 
Multi-million dollar gifts by Evelyn Smith and her family endow faculty positions and graduate fellowships throughout the college. Their generosity is recognized with the naming of the Evelyn Smith Music Theatre. The same year David Katzin gives $500,000 to name Katzin Concert Hall and provide endowed programming.
Art in America lists ASU Art Museum as the “single most impressive venue for contemporary art in Arizona.”
Doc Severinsen becomes the first artist to hold the Katherine K. Herberger Heritage Chair for Visiting Artists, followed by Gunther Schuller and the St. Lawrence String Quartet.
Mark Klett (art) is named the college’s fourth Regents’ Professor. 
ArtWalk, the first alumni art festival becomes an annual fixture of ASU Homecoming.
School of Art M.F.A. program leaps to 13th in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Specialty areas also received special recognition: printmaking, ceramics, and photography.
School of Art begins a joint Ph.D. in art history and theory with the University of Arizona.
Graduate programs in Music, Art and Theatre are nationally ranked by U.S. News & World Report. 
Professional Connections Office, later to be called
Student Success, is established to aid students in gaining on-the-job experience and post-graduation placement.
The Office of Public Art is created to administer the college’s growing public arts program.
Luis Jimenez, Southwest Pieta, 1987.
The Ceramics Research Center, under the auspices of the ASU Art Museum, is created by the Board of Regents. 
Arts, Media and Engineering experiential media graduate program is created in conjunction with Fulton School of Engineering. 
motione premieres at ASU then debuts in Lincoln Center, garnering repeated coverage in The New York Times.
College initiates certificate program in Public Art.
Stanton Sears and Andrea Myklebust, Prickly/Prickly/Prickly/Prickly/Spiny, 2005.
College celebrates 40th anniversary.