Sichuan University is a key comprehensive university under the direct leadership of the Ministry of Education. It is a key university of national "Project 211" and "Project 985" for key construction and a hundred-year-old university with a long history, profound academic accumulation and rich humanistic atmosphere.

Sichuan University has a long history of art education and the tradition of advocating literacy and arts. As early as the 1920s and 1930s, the university set up art specialties such as fine arts, music, etc. It has trained and cultivated a batch of art professionals for society. In the mid-1990s, Sichuan University became one of the first comprehensive universities in respect of restoration of arts education in China. After the College of Culture and Arts, Arts College (1996), College of Philosophy and Arts (1998) and other forms, the Arts College was established in June 2001.

Rooted in a century-old prestigious university, the Arts College of Sichuan University benefits from the profound historical and cultural heritage and the age-old tradition of art education, and has established the schooling philosophy of “giving play to integrated advantages, advocating the spirit of humanity, promoting artistic innovation, and cultivation of first-class talents". It insists on the concept of equal stress on cultivation of artistic talents, artistic creation and artistic research. With multi-disciplinary support and with its foothold in southwest China and influence covering the entire country, it aims at building a first-rate arts college of comprehensive university in China and cultivation of high-quality artistic talents with innovative spirit and creative ability. Through unremitting efforts, it has achieved considerable progress in all aspects and has become a major college of art education and artistic research and creation in western China.

The college currently has 127 staff, including 115 full-time teachers, 20 administrative staff, auxiliary teachers and ideological and political teachers, and 15 part-time professors inside and outside the university. The proportion of full-time teachers with intermediate or senior title is 59% and the proportion of teachers with a master's degree or doctoral degree is 68%; there are 52 postgraduate tutors in artistic disciplines and 19 doctoral tutors. The college has a group of well-known artists and art educators and hires a batch of well-known experts and scholars at home and abroad as honorary professors and visiting professors.

The Arts College of Sichuan University is set with complete majors and rich in educational level. It has built a talent cultivation system integrating undergraduates, masters and doctors and currently has 8 undergraduate programmes; 4 authorized units for awarding master's degree of first-level discipline and 2 authorized units for awarding Master of Arts (MFA); the College is the first college with authorized units for awarding doctorate of arts in Southwest China and currently has 3 authorized units for awarding first-level doctorate of arts, consisting of 16 orientations. In addition, it has jointly built the authorized units for awarding doctorate of study of cultural relics and art history with the School of History & Culture, consisting of 4 orientations; it also has 3 provincial key disciplines. The College currently has nearly 1,500 undergraduate students, 350 master degree candidates, and nearly 300 students enrolled in adult education.

Centering on the talent cultivation goal of “profound foundation, width scope, high quality and strong specialty”, the College strives to explore and build an innovative arts talent cultivation model of comprehensive university, resulting in comprehensive enhancement of teaching construction and talent cultivation quality. The College has 1 national featured major, 1 provincial featured major and 2 university-level featured majors, 1 state-level quality course and 1 state-level experimental teaching center. In 2009, it was approved as an experimental area for training of innovative arts talents of the Ministry of Education. The College has established 12 teaching practice bases and implemented the "professional development program”. The "Arts Forum" of the College regularly holds more than 20 professional lectures for students each semester.

The College has the key research bases of humanities & social sciences of the Ministry of Education, i.e. 5 scientific research institutions Institute of Chinese Folk Culture, Institute of Fine Arts, Institute of Environmental Art, Institute of Visual Arts, and Institute of New Arts. Adhering to the principle of system management and equal stress on encouragement and support, the scientific research assessment mechanism has been improved after giving full consideration to the coexistence of artistic and scientific research and creation. The artistic research and creation are leading in western China and certain fields have great influence in China. In the recent five years, the College has obtained more than thirty scientific research projects at provincial and ministerial levels and domestic cooperative research projects, and published and issued a large number of high-quality academic monographs, essays and works. Artistic creations of a lot of teachers and students were selected by high-level exhibitions or won awards. The teachers and students of the performance major often participated in important artistic performances at home and abroad, and won important awards. All the majors of the College attach importance to the popularization and implementation of social practice and applied artistic achievements and actively participate in urban construction, corporate culture construction and brand building .Extensive social cooperation serves the socio-economic and cultural construction, while providing abundant artistic practice opportunities for teachers and students, demonstrating the effectiveness of artistic teaching and scientific research. The artistic imagination, creativity and expressiveness of teachers and students are praised by the government and the industry, which has shaped the good social reputation of the College.

The College attaches great importance to the cooperation and exchanges with art colleges and relevant institutions at home and abroad, and has formed the normal mechanism of academic exchange, talent cultivation and cooperative research. Each year, a group of well-known domestic and foreign experts and artists are invited to give lectures or performances at our college. At present, the College has established academic exchange and cooperative research relationships with many famous universities in the United States, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Russia, Japan and Australia, and has signed "2 + 2" and "3 + 1 + 1" talent cultivation agreements for joint cultivation of undergraduates, postgraduates and doctoral students. Over the past five years, the College has hosted and undertaken over 10 domestic and overseas high-level academic conferences; nearly 400 teachers and students have been invited to participate in academic and art performances both at home and abroad.

The upgrade of art to a discipline gives art education a new opportunity for development. The state policy of "promoting the great development and prosperity of socialist culture" has endowed art education with more social responsibilities and missions. Facing the opportunities and challenges, the Arts College of Sichuan University will continue its efforts to build an important highland for the cultivation of artistic talents, artistic creation and artistic research in Western China.