Our Collaborators

The ombudsperson is a confidential resource at SAIC who helps degree-seeking students, faculty, and staff think through any issues they may be encountering at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. They collaborate with individuals and campus partners on solutions by listening and helping to clarify underlying issues and interests, aiding in talking through thoughts and feelings about difficult situations, thinking through the most appropriate strategies and approaches to an ongoing dispute, assisting in developing and evaluating options or courses of action and thinking through how to pursue them, offering an impartial perspective, thinking through an agenda for a meeting to be efficient and constructive, assisting in developing a structure for a difficult conversation or meeting, helping prepare for a negotiation, looking into a problem informally (with permission from the student, faculty, or staff member) and providing information regarding policies, procedures, services, and programs. Email the ombudsperson at ombuds@saic.edu.

The John M. Flaxman Library engages with our community members in deep ways, allowing them to be effective scholars, critical users, and creators of information, applying their knowledge to their artistic, academic, and lifelong endeavors. Integrating and embracing diversity, equity, and inclusion is essential to this work. 

Founded in 1868, the Visiting Artists Program is one of the oldest public programs of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has featured over 1,000 international artists, designers, and scholars representing more than 70 countries through a diverse mix of lectures, screenings, conversations, and readings. The primary mission of the Visiting Artists Program is to educate and foster a greater understanding and appreciation of contemporary art and culture through discourse. In addition to public lectures, visiting artists engage with SAIC students through studio critiques and roundtable discussions, providing direct access to leading interdisciplinary experts in their fields. 

With this program in the historic North Lawndale neighborhood, SAIC is building an intersection to combine all aspects of artistic service and community in order to teach, learn, create, and grow. As artists, members serve the vision to produce work that inspires emotion, reflection, and action. As activists, members serve the community to build paths to positive change. As community members, members care for their neighbors and work together to improve the neighborhood. The program does this through an artist in residency program, SAIC degrees classes, community classes, workshops, and events. Homan Square provides artistic resources, artistic and job skills, along with public projects. 

The Gene Siskel Film Center is Chicago’s premier art house cinema in the heart of the theater district, bringing film lovers together for an unparalleled movie-going experience. The Film Center presents a curated collection of eclectic international, independent, and classic cinema with festivals and year-round programming while striving to provide a welcoming space reflective of Chicago’s diverse community. As a public program of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Film Center fosters dialogues that set films in historical and cultural context through panels, lectures, and filmmaker conversations. 

SAIC's Department of Exhibitions and Exhibition Studies brings the boundary-pushing work of acclaimed and emerging artists to Chicago audiences.

With shows and projects led by Department of Exhibitions staff, faculty, and student curators, the School's exhibition spaces are teaching galleries that engage process as a pedagogical model and mode of research. Exhibitions are free and open to the public. 

CAPX prepares students and alums through career education and connects them to diverse professional experiences to achieve their career goals and thrive.
 

The mission of Counseling Services at SAIC is to assist students in meeting their emotional, psychological, and mental health needs and to contribute to a campus environment that facilitates the healthy growth and development of students by providing counseling and psychotherapy, crisis intervention, consultation, care management, and mental health promotion.

The mission of the Disability and Learning Resource Center (DLRC) is to support a universally accessible educational community that fosters full participation and contribution of every member. The DLRC carries out its mission by delivering innovative and high-quality services to SAIC students with disabilities and by facilitating and advocating for reasonable accommodations.

The Office of International Affairs houses both International Student Services, providing advising and resources to our international student population, and Study Abroad/Off-Campus, assisting students in pursuing wide-ranging educational experiences outside Chicago.
 

SAIC's Korean Student Advisor and Chinese Student Liaison assist students in adjusting to campus and the US culture by building a supportive community, identifying personal and emotional concerns of students, and providing appropriate resources and referrals. They collaborate closely with academics and student services departments to provide support and assistance to students. 

Staff members in the Office of Student Affairs are available to assist students with a wide-range of issues and concerns that might arise during their time at SAIC. These issues include mental and physical health challenges, conflicts with others, and community standards.

The director of Student Engagement and the Cultural Oasis coordinator provide supervision, mentorship, and support to Student Affinity groups and their leaders. Approximately one-third of all the student groups are affinity- or identity-based. Student affinity groups are established through the Office of Student Affairs’ Office of Campus Life by SAIC students around a shared interest, ideology, identity, experience, or common goal. These student-led groups are open to all members of the community, and provide opportunities to form meaningful connections. Groups will often host recurring meetings, or organize events such as festivals, symposia, panels, artist talks, and workshops.

SAIC’s Wellness Center provides empathic and compassionate support and care dedicated to ensuring that every SAIC student’s experience is a successful one. The Center includes counseling services, health services, and the Disability and Learning Resource Center (DLRC).

The Center for Teaching and Learning is a campus-wide resource that advances SAIC’s broader learning goals and inspires imaginative pedagogical practices. The CTL works alongside institutional colleagues, dialogues with community stakeholders, and engages educational leaders across the globe to offer faculty formative support in all phases of their instruction.

In an effort to promote diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility and anti-racism within the curriculum and throughout the teaching and learning experience, the Office of DEI partners with Deans, Department heads, faculty, staff, and students throughout the School to offer curricular support as well as opportunities for dialogue and knowledge expansion.