Financial Aid & Scholarships
Creative Arts Scholarships and Auditions
Are you an aspiring performing or creative artist, or just looking to continue your passion for the arts while in college? You may be eligible to receive a Creative Arts Scholarship. These awards stack with our enhanced academic scholarships, Tuition Lock Guarantee, and other financial aid opportunities. Schedule an audition with a faculty or staff member, or submit your audition form here today!
Scholarships are available in:
- Visual Arts
- Graphic Design
- Instrumental Music
- Vocal Music
- Theatre
- Musical Theatre
- Technical Theatre
- Creative Writing
- Dance
- Literature
Schedule or Submit Your Audition or Portfolio Review!
If you would like to schedule an on-campus private audition along with a campus tour, please schedule an on-campus visit through the Office of Admissions by clicking here. If you have already received a campus tour and would only like to schedule an on-campus private audition, please contact Julian Marshall at marshall.j@wvwc.edu. You can also complete a virtual audition by submitting a digital portfolio or online performance videos.
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Audition and Portfolio Requirements
- Instrumental Music: Two etudes demonstrating both technique and musicianship
- Keyboard: Two pieces in contrasting styles
- Vocal Music: Two contrasting pieces, one of which should be in a language other than English
- Theatre Arts: Two contrasting monologues which must be memorized and no more than one minute each in length
- Musical Theatre: 24-36 measures of a song and one contrasting monologue which should be memorized and 1-2 minutes in length
- Technical Theatre: Example of artwork, resume of experience, and a portfolio of technical work
- Dance: A 2-3 minute dance piece of your choice
- Creative Writing: 2–5 pages of creative writing, which can include fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Most applicants submit a single short story, essay, or series of poems.
- Visual Art & Graphic Design: A completed application along with a physical or digital version of your portfolio
- Literature: 3-4 page analysis of a literary work
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Faculty Bios
Here are a few sample bios of the tremendous faculty and staff you’ll work with at WVWC!
Art and Design
Name: Jon W Benjamin
Training and specialties: Graphic Design, Digital Media
Contact Me: https://theargomedia.com/
Background: Jon received a Master of Fine Arts degree in Graphic Design from the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York and a Bachelor of Science from the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. His master thesis was entitled, “Medical Information Design: Empowering the Patient.” Jon started as a freelance designer for biotech startups in Madison, Wisconsin.
For eleven years, Jon was a Senior Graphic Designer for an association management company located in a suburb of Washington D.C. Jon developed brands, designed websites, and produced scientific journals. His clients included the American Society of Consulting Arborists, the Association of Water Technologies, and the Cardiology Leadership Alliance.
Jon won awards for logo design and conference branding from the American Advertising Federation DC Chapter and Association Trends.
Jon previously taught courses in Digital Foundations and Medical Illustration at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, Ohio. He is currently the Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at West Virginia Wesleyan College. Jon has teaches courses in Graphic Design, Typography, Web Design, Brand Identity Systems, Motion Graphics, Video Production, Video Game Design, Art History, Graphic Design History, Principles of Visual Communication and Television Broadcasting.
In 2019 he started the West Virginia Art and Design Association in Buckhannon, West Virginia to help local artists and designers to collaborate, learn and promote their businesses.
Jon opened an Independent Bookstore in 2021 that sells a curated collection of books, games and art supplies. Argo Books also provides the community with a Writers Club, Bookclub, Film & Photo Club, Animation Club, Game Design Club and Cineclub. Jon is a member of the American Institute of Graphic Arts.
Name: Crystal Ann Brown
Training and specialties: Interdisciplinary Arts, Art History and Curatorial Practice
Contact Me: brown.c@wvwc.edu
Background: I studied sculpture at Kendal College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids Michigan where I earned my BFA in sculpture and a minor in art history. I earned my MFA from Ohio University, in Athens, Ohio where I studied sculpture and expanded practice. While living in Kansas City I started the Hown’s Den: a domestic + nomadic exhibition space and taught in the continuing education department at the Kansas City Art Institute. Since moving to West Virginia I have continued to exhibit regularly, nationally and internationally, while spending the last 5 years adjuncting at Davis and Elkins College, West Virginia Wesleyan and directing the Sleeth art gallery. In the summer of 2019 founded artCAB Studio which offers art classes for folks of all skill levels and ages, including art summer camps for kids.
Creative Writing
Name: Robert Stevens
Training and specialties: Creative Writing, Fiction
Contact Me: stevens.r@wvwc.edu
Background: As a Navy brat, Robert Yune moved 11 times by the time he turned 18. After graduating from Pitt, he lived in Pittsburgh for the next 15 years.
In the summer of 2012, he worked as a stand-in for George Takei and has appeared as an extra in commercials and movies such as Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and Fathers and Daughters.
Yune’s fiction has been published in Green Mountains Review, The Kenyon Review, and Pleiades, among others. In 2009, he received a writing fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
In 2015, his debut novel Eighty Days of Sunlight was nominated for the International DUBLIN Literary Award. Other nominees that year included Lauren Groff, Kazuo Ishiguro and Salman Rushdie. His debut story collection Impossible Children won the 2017 Mary McCarthy Prize and was published in October 2019 by Sarabande Books.
Yune serves on the board of Autumn House Press and Literacy Volunteers of Upshur County. He also reads for Gettysburg Review.
Music
Name: Dr. R. Daniel Hughes, Associate Professor, Department Chair
Contact me: Email: hughes_r@wvwc.edu
Training and Specialties: DMA – Choral Music – University of Illinois
MM – Choral Conducting – Eastman School of Music
BA – Vocal Performance – Otterbein University
Director of Choral Activities, Voice, liaison to Department of Theatre and DanceDr. R. Daniel Hughes is Chairperson for the Department of Music, Director of Choral Activities and Liaison between the Department of Music and the Department of Theatre & Dance. Dr. Hughes is active as a tenor, conductor, clinician and adjudicator. He has presented several reading and interest sessions for ACDA, and has prepared and conducted choirs and singers for national, regional and state conferences. He wrote the article on Dominick Argento for the most recent edition of the Grove Dictionary of American Music. Dr. Hughes received his Bachelor of Arts in Vocal Performance from Otterbein University, Masters of Music in Choral Conducting from the Eastman School of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Choral Music at the University of Illinois.
Name: Adam Loudin, Assistant Professor
Contact me: loudin_a@wvwc.edu
Training and Specialties: BME – Music Education – West Virginia Wesleyan College
MM – Jazz Studies – Indiana University, Jacobs School of MusicMusic Education, Director of Jazz EnsemblesAdam Loudin is Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Jazz Ensembles at West Virginia Wesleyan College. Previously, he directed bands and choirs at Robert L. Bland Middle School, where his ensembles were recognized as West Virginia Music Educators Association State Middle School State Honor Ensembles. Loudin serves as a guest conductor, clinician, and adjudicator throughout West Virginia and has presented both choral and instrumental interest sessions for ACDA and WVMEA. He has performed extensively in jazz and classical settings, including more than a decade with the West Virginia Brass Quintet. Loudin holds a Bachelor of Music Education from West Virginia Wesleyan College and a Master of Music in Jazz Studies from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music.Name: Lyndon Ji, Assistant Professor
Contact me: ji.l@wvwc.edu
Training and Specialties: DMA – Yale School of Music (In Progress)
Artist Diploma – Indiana University, Jacobs School of MusicMM – Piano Performance – University of Michigan
BS – Mathematics – Yale University
Applied Piano, Collaborative PianistLyndon Ji is Assistant Professor of Music at West Virginia Wesleyan College. Equally at home in traditional and contemporary repertoire, he has performed with members of the Grammy Award-winning Akropolis Reed Quintet and has recently appeared at the Ticino Musica Festival (Lugano), Mozarteum (Salzburg), Core Memory Music, Orchestra New England, Gijón Piano Festival, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Bowdoin International Music Festival, and Norfolk New Music Workshop.
Grand Prize winner of the Chicago International Music Competition, Lyndon is also a recipient of an Anna-Maria Moggio Foundation grant and has been awarded artist residencies at Avaloch Farm and Yellow Barn. He is a current candidate for the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the Yale School of Music under Wei-Yi Yang, Artistic Director of the Bay Area International Piano Competition, and former staff pianist at Rutgers University. Previously, he completed studies with Roberto Plano at Indiana University (Artist Diploma) and Logan Skelton at the University of Michigan (MM). He holds a BS in Mathematics from Yale University, where he additionally served as one of the inaugural Swensen Fellows.
Name: Eliza Taylor
Contact Me: taylor.e@wvwc.edu
Background: Eliza Taylor is the Director of Athletic Bands at West Virginia Wesleyan College. She is currently living in Elkins, West Virginia with her husband, Seth Blake ‘17, a fellow music educator. Eliza holds a Bachelor of Music Education (BME) from West Virginia Wesleyan College and a Master of Music (MM) in Flute Performance with graduate certificates in Instrumental Conducting and Music Administration from The Ohio University School of Music. She is a member of Women Band Directors International, NAfME, WVMEA, West Virginia Bandmasters, Sigma Alpha Iota International Music Fraternity, and Pi Kappa Lambda honor society for music. Eliza studied wind band conducting at Ohio University under Dr. William Talley, and has studied flute with Dr. Keith Hanlon, Linda Wolfersheim, and Alison Brown-Sincoff.
Theatre and Dance
Name: Gregory Mach
Training and specialties: Acting/Directing/Stage Makeup
Contact Me: mach@wvwc.edu and 304-473-8855
Background: GREGORY MACH is a tenured Associate Professor of Theatre Arts and former Chair of the Department of Theatre & Dance at West Virginia Wesleyan College in his 22nd year at that institution, and previously taught at Davis and Elkins College for thirteen years.
A professional actor, director, and playwright when he is not teaching, he earned his Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Mississippi in 1985, and has performed everything from Shakespeare to mime at numerous theatres throughout the southeastern United States including the Barter Theatre, Greenbrier Valley Theatre, Surflight Theatre, Cumberland County Playhouse, Mississippi Summer Showcase, West Virginia Public Theatre, Theatre West Virginia and many more. Favorite roles include Sherlock Holmes, Henry II in THE LION IN WINTER, Franz Liebkind in THE PRODUCERS, and all the Shakespeare plays he has done, particularly the role of Bottom in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, which he has played 5 times. He has directed extensively for the commercial, university and community stage, as well as for international tours, including such plays as THE MUSIC MAN, GODSPELL, DRACULA, LEND ME A TENOR, NUNSENSE, CRIMES OF THE HEART, OLIVER!, and many more.
He served as the West Virginia State Representative for 15 years on the Board of Directors of the Southeastern Theatre Conference, the largest theatre conference in the nation, for which he was the State Auditions Coordinator for 2 years. He also served as Secretary/Treasurer of the WV Theatre Association, and chaired the Board of Directors of the Valley Ridge Studios, a small theatre doing outstanding work in Thomas, WV. In 1999, he was selected by the Rotary International Foundation to represent higher education and the arts in West Virginia on a thirty-day Group Study Exchange tour to Daegu, Korea.
Greg is the author of many produced plays, among them four one-act children’s plays, two of which have toured West Virginia schools as part of children’s theatre programs at West Virginia Wesleyan College and Davis and Elkins College, and one of which has won a national award. He has also written and directed several murder mystery dinner theatre productions at local theatres and restaurants, including the Gandy Dancer Theatre in Elkins, WV, and the 88 in Buckhannon, WV, and is the author of three mime shows, one of which has toured Eastern Europe.
Name: Tom Schoffler
Training and specialties: Acting and Theatre
Contact Me: schoffler_t@wvwc.edu
Background: Chair of the Department of Theatre & Dance, Tom is a working actor and director. He has directed in New York and regionally, and is a founding company member of Theatre Alaska. Tom is also a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique and presents masterclasses and workshops across the country to students ranging from professional arm wrestlers and pole-vaulters to performers of all stripes @tommyschoff
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