Performing Arts

Graduates in the performing arts may choose from a variety of career options. Some attend professional training schools and/or graduate school for further concentration in their studies in dance, music, or theatre. Others earn certification through the Rockford University education department and teach at the primary or secondary level.

Performing arts graduates often pursue careers in jobs requiring presentational abilities: teaching, advertising, public relations, radio, sales, television, repertory and community theatres, recreation and film. The performing arts degree also may lead to a career in the performing arts, arts therapy, private studio teaching, or arts management.

Recent Graduates
By the time they graduate, our performing arts students typically have worked on more than 20 productions. Many go on to pursue careers in Chicago and New York and attend leading graduate programs nationwide.

Alumni: Where are they now?

Performing Arts Scholarship
The Performing Arts department recommends awards of up to $80,000 (over 4 years) based on talent and potential. Awards are computed as a part of the student’s overall aid package.

Vocal Collective Scholarship
Up to $2,000, for year-long participation in the Vocal Collective, a select, mixed choral ensemble of 15 singers that serves as an ambassador for the University, performing at University functions and representing Rockford University at community events such as sports games, corporate events and city/religious gatherings. Students from all four classes and from many disciplines make up the Vocal Collective. Auditions are held each fall during the first week of classes.

Hognander Endowed Scholarship
Gertrude Lund Hognander Scholarship for Leadership in Music and the Performing Arts, established in 2004, is named for Alumna Gertrude Lund Hognander, Class of 1937, and provides funds for a full-time student of any year who participates in music or the performing arts programs at Rockford University, demonstrates personal initiative, leadership and teamwork, and is an engaged and positive contributor to one’s school, community and/or performing arts group.

Margaret E. Everett Music Scholarship
Established in 1994 by the estate of Miss Everett, a 1919 graduate of Rockford University, to provide music scholarships for students demonstrating need.

Bill Stiles Award                                                                                                                                              The Bill Stiles award was created in memory of Bill Stiles, a Performing Arts/ Acting major and 1989 graduate of the formerly named Rockford College, who passed away in 2000. The award is the Performing Arts Department’s highest acting honor and is based on a body of work. The award can go to a junior or senior. Recipients’ names are engraved on a plaque which is on display in the Clark Arts Center loggia directly under a photograph of Bill.

Noel Rennerfeldt Award

‌Each semester, all Performing Arts students are enrolled in the class Performing Arts-Field Experience. This class gives students the opportunity to experience the best the arts communities of Chicago, Ill., Milwaukee and Madison, Wis., have to offer. Three times each semester, we take students to a variety of dance, music and theatre events in these three cities.

Past events include: Arthur Miller’s last play–Finishing the Picture, Steppenwolf Theatre productions with Gary Sinese and John Malkovich, Rigoletto and Sweeney Todd at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Dracula at the Milwaukee Ballet, Chicago Symphony Orchestra performing Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, and the pre-Broadway productions of the Goodman Theatre’s productions of Death of a Salesman and Mary’s Zimmerman’s The Odyssey, Aida and The Producers.