The University of Arizona entered an agreement with Adobe to provide its student body the full suite of Adobe Creative Cloud software, making the institution the company’s first West Coast Adobe Creative Campus.
With this agreement Adobe will make a $100,000 gift to the UA to support a planned student success district that will encompass Bear Down Gym, the Main Library and the Science-Engineering Library. Students also have access to Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Adobe Premiere Pro, Dreamweaver and more.
“The University of Arizona must provide students with the opportunity to master the tools and skills that will allow them to succeed in the future,” said UA President Ann Weaver Hart. “The UA’s student success district will be a vibrant hub for this kind of practical learning experience, and integrating visual design, web development and other digital skills is an important component of this effort.”
The agreement represents a shared philosophy between Adobe and the UA as each attempts to reshape the 21st-century student experience. As the first West Coast university to be designated an Adobe Creative Campus, the UA is just the fifth school in the country to earn this recognition for its commitment to creative and digital literacy among its students.
“We can see a day when students use these technologies the way most of us use a pen and paper,” said Melissa Vito, senior vice president for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management and senior vice provost for Academic Initiatives and Student Success. “Adobe’s technology and gift bring us one step closer to our vision of a student experience that weaves tech, academics and engagement into a single, unbroken experience.”
Various departments and academic programs already have begun rolling out Adobe Creative Cloud to UA students. Beginning with the fall 2017 semester, Creative Cloud licenses will be available to every member of the incoming freshman class.
“Students are no longer merely information consumers; they are knowledge creators. As a result, they need new types of educational tools, like those available from Adobe,” said Karen Williams, vice president for information strategies and University Libraries.
The changes happening on the UA’s campus are reflective of an emerging mindset among students, University administrators and faculty that creative tools such as those provided by Adobe are not limited to fields that traditionally have been considered creative, but are essential tools for all professions as digital proliferation expands across industries.
“Adobe and the University of Arizona are each committed to a world in which students are fluent in the technologies and tools that will serve them on campus and make them invaluable professionals,” said Jonathan Hammond, Adobe vice president for North American education. “Students always learn best by doing and making, so by fostering creative problem-solving through Adobe’s Creative Cloud, we know that we can improve student outcomes and stimulate new thinking in any field.”
According to internal data, 92 percent of employers rate UA grads as having the skills needed to succeed on the job. Nationally, about 23 percent of employers say college grads are well-prepared, according to an online survey conducted on behalf of the Association of American Colleges & Universities. The same survey found that 65 percent of employers rated a recent graduate’s ability to innovate and be creative as “very important,” but only 37 percent of employers believed that recent college graduates were “well-prepared with current technologies.
