The Department of Art & Design is an exciting and wide-ranging academic unit employing 20 full-time faculty, 15 full-time equivalent contract instructors, and 15 full-time continuing support staff across seven major disciplines, each with graduate program specializations in Drawing & Intermedia, Painting, Printmaking, Sculpture, Industrial Design, Visual Communication Design and History of Art, Design and Visual Culture. The Department offers BA, BDes, BFA, MA, MDes, MFA and PhD degrees. It also administers a major visual arts facility, the FAB (Fine Arts Building) Gallery. The Department is home to a University Centre of Research Excellence in Printmaking and an emerging Centre of Research Excellence in Design.

The Department attracts 4000 half course equivalent undergraduate registrations per year. It has 50 graduate students and operating budget of CAD $4.5 million. It includes advanced specialized labs and studios for rapid prototyping, photography, all media for printmaking, five design computer labs, a 125-seat lecture theatre, a print study centre and a visual resource centre. The total annual research/project grants (2000-present) is on average CAD $500,000 per year. The Faculty of Arts also includes Departments of Drama and Music and 11 other Departments in the social sciences and humanities, with which the Department of Art & Design often interacts collaboratively.

The University of Alberta, founded in 1908, is one of Canada's largest research universities, and is situated in the provincial capital, Edmonton, a metropolitan area of over 1,000,000 with a vibrant artistic community and an excellent standard of living. The campus is located adjacent to one of the largest municipal park systems in North America and is approximately 3 hours by car from the Canadian Rocky Mountains.