June 1-15, 2025 -- Mandatory Immersion #1 

The last Sunday in August the newest cohort returns to Philadelphia for the day for individual meetings with the faculty about their progress on their individual projects and to talk with their colleagues in the cohort

September 26 | 12pm -- Program Information Session (virtually) 

September 30 -- Applications open for Summer 2026 immersion 

September 30-December 31 -- Letters of Intent Reviewed 

January 9-11, 2026 -- Immersion Program #2 (2025 Cohort) 

January 25 -- PhD Application materials are due 

February 3, 2026 -- Finalists invited to interview with Directors 

February 4-9, 2026 -- Interviews conducted (virtually) 

February 12, 2026 -- PhD Admissions offer letters extended in accordance with rolling admissions process 

The PhD in Creativity at Rowan University is accepting letters of intent for preliminary screening to enroll into the program. After review of your letter, you may be invited to complete the official application process based on your letter of intent. If you wish to send your application materials in at least a month before the deadline, we'd be happy to constul with you regarding your application prior to final submission. 

If you are interested in pursuing the PhD in Creativity, submit the following materials as one document by January 25, 2026:

• A proposal of about 1,000 words, outlining the dissertation you wish to pursue. Think of this as a proposal for a book you'd like to write. 
  
  This document should state the central question your research proposes to address. It should also discuss the need for your project, both personal and more broadly in your field or fields; your project's relationship to previous scholarship in the field; the methods you propose to use; and a selection of works by others you consider central to your project. 
  
  We are happy to review or discuss your research proposal prior to the due date using the email above.
  
  
• A personal statement of about 1,000 words explaining your interest in the PhD in Creativity. Topics you may wish to consider:
  • What led to your interest in pursuing this PhD?
  • How has your prior training or work experience prepared you to undertake the writing of your dissertation?
  • What other works or paths – books, articles, bodies of work, or other influences – do you want to explore during your time in the program?
  • What do you envision yourself doing with this degree?
  • How did you hear about our program?

Please note that these are only suggestions, and the personal statement is not intended to be a comprehensive document. Overall, it should give us a sense of your interests and who you are.

• Potential advisors:Provide any suggestions of experts whom you would ideally like to have as an advisor, based on your reading for your project. You need not and probably won't select any of the people who have advised current or former students unless they are particularly relevant to your project. Also, you need not have had any previous contact with them, but in a paragraph, explain why you would like them on your committee of advisors.
  
  
• Resume or CV
  

Applicant Portal for Submissions 

International Applicant Portal 

Questions? Contact phdincreativity@rowan.edu

• Two-week Creativity Immersion Residency (first summer)
  • Each new Phd in Creativity student must attend a mandatory two-week Creativity Immersion residency, which is held during the first summer of the program. This intensive Creativity Immersion includes ongoing seminars on methods and revision of the dissertation proposals.
  • The June 2025 Creativity Immersion =  June 1 - June 15, 2025. The class meets 9am-6pm for 14 consecutive days and occasional evenings. You will need a smartphone and a laptop.
  • Most of our seminar meetings will be in the Barnes Foundation, but some meetings will be elsewhere. We intentionally do not announce the location of many meetings to leave students as unprepared and hence open-minded as possible for some of the experiences we organize.
  • Housing Options for First Summer Residency - Students should find accommodations within reasonable walking distance to the Barnes Foundation at 2025 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy, Philadelphia, PA 19130. Plan to arrive May 31 and depart on June 15.
• The last Sunday in August - the newest cohort returns to Philadelphia for the day for individual meetings with the faculty about their progress on their individual projects and to talk with their colleagues in the cohort.

• Three-day Creativity Immersion Residency (January)
  • An additional four-day Creativity Immersion residency is required from January 8 to January 10, 2026 following the first fall semester. This intensive Creativity Immersion includes ongoing seminars on methods and the revision of the dissertation proposals. Located at The Barnes Foundation. 

Once determined, the annual tuition for the PhD in Creativity will be listed on Rowan’s Graduate Tuition & Fees page. Tuition for 2024-2025 was roughly $30,000. 

If eligible, students who complete the FAFSA may also receive Federal Direct Unsubsidized loans. You can apply to borrow additional funds to cover your costs in the form of a Federal Direct Graduate PLUS loan or private educational loans. 

The program does not currently have fellowship funding. All students are strongly encouraged to seek fellowships from external sources in the forms of scholarships, grants, and fellowships from employers, foundations and corporations.

Dissertation Advisors for the 2022 Cohort (Class of 2025) 

George Aye
Co-Founder and Director of Innovation, Greater Good Studio; faculty member in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago's (SAIC) Department of Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects.

Quinn Bauriedel
Associate Professor and Program Director of the MFA in Devised Performance at Rowan University's College of Performing Arts; Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Pig Iron Theatre Company; Obie Award winner

Anthony Davis
Composer, Professor of Music at UC San Diego; Pulitzer Prize recipient

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., PhD
Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Harvard University; MacArthur Award recipient

Deniz Ortactepe Hart, PhD
Lecturer in TESOL, School of Education at the University of Glasgow

Richard Herman, PhD
Professor Emeritus and former Chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Hannah Higgins, PhD
Professor of Intermedia and Avant-Garde Art and Culture, Founding Director of IDEAS, University of Illinois Chicago

Scott Kiesling, PhD
Chair of the Department of Linguistics, University of Pittsburgh

Sara Konrath, PhD
Associate Professor of Philanthropic Studies, IUPUI Lilly Family School of Philanthropy

Jim McNeely
Pianist, Composer, and Professor Emeritus in Jazz Composition at Manhattan School of Music

Keith Mines
Director, Latin America Program at United States Institute of Peace; author of Why Nation-Building Matters: Political Consolidation, Building Security Forces, and Economic Development in Failed and Fragile States (University of Nebraska Press)

Zach Savich
Associate Professor, Cleveland Institute of Art; Visiting Program Faculty, the PhD in Creativity, Rowan University; award winning poet

Fadi Skeiker, PhD
Professor of Theatre, Fordham University

Amrita Subramanian, PhD
Faculty, Organizational Dynamics, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania,

Henry Threadgill
Pulitzer Prize-winning Jazz Composer

Pratyusha Tummala-Narra, PhD
Research Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Director of Community-Based Education at the Albert and Jessie Danielsen Institute at Boston University

Robin Wagner-Pacifici, PhD
Professor, Department of Sociology at The New School for Social Research

Dissertation Advisors for the 2019 Cohort/Class of 2022

Ronald A. Beghetto, PhD
Pinnacle West Presidential Chair and Professor, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University, and Author of Uncertainty x Design: Educating for Possible Futures (Cambridge University Press)

Arnold Berleant, PhD, DFA (hon.)
Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Long Island University; Past President of the International Association of Aesthetics

Lorene Cary
Senior Lecturer, Department of English at the University of Pennsylvania; author of Black Ice, Lady Sitting, My General Tubman and other books and plays

Jason Demeter, PhD
Assistant Professor of English at Norfolk State University

Finis Dunaway, PhD
Professor of History, Trent University

Suzanne Hudson, PhD
Associate Professor of Art History and Fine Arts, University of Southern California

Christine Hume, PhD
Professor of English Language and Literature at Eastern Michigan University

Paul Finkleman, PhD
President, Gratz College

Yael Katz, PhD
Vice President, Academic at Georgian College, Ontario, Canada

Simon Kim
Associate Professor, University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design

William Kinderman, PhD
Professor and Elaine Krown Klein Chair in Performance Studies / Music Performance at UCLA

Marilyn Krieger, PhD
Director of Public Relations, Trade Media & Events, E. & J. Gallo Winery

Karl Kusserow, PhD
John Wilmerding Curator of American Art, Princeton University Art Museum

Robert Lumley, PhD
Professor Emeritus at University College London

William W. McIlhenny
Senior Fellow, German Marshall Fund of the United States

Lisa Messeri, PhD
Assistant Professor of Sociocultural Anthropology, Yale University

Mark Moore, PhD
Clinical Psychologist/Psychoanalyst

Linda F. Nathan, EdD
Adjunct lecturer, Harvard Graduate School of Education; Co-Director, Perrone Sizer Institute for Creative Leadership

Julie Reiss, PhD

John Sexton
Benjamin F. Butler Professor of Law, New York University; President Emeritus, New York University

Paul Stoller, PhD
Professor of Anthropology, West Chester University

Buzz Spector
Visiting Faculty, PhD in Creativity at Rowan University; American artist and critic, Emeritus Professor and Dean of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University, St. Louis

James Thomas, PhD
Deputy Director, Helen Frankenthaler Foundation

Stephen Joel Trachtenberg
President and University Professor Emeritus, George Washington University

The support of generous alumni and friends helps impact students in the PhD in Creativity by providing vital resources for scholarships, academic enhancements and leadership and engagement opportunities.

To support the PhD in Creativity, click the button below and type in "Phd in Creativity" under "Designation Instructions." Your generosity today will make an immediate and lasting impact on the storytellers, artists, critical thinkers and communicators of tomorrow. 

Give now

For more information, contact:
Kaylee Collins
Director of Annual Giving
collinske@rowan.edu | 856-256-5415

The PhD in Creativitiy at Rowan University is housed in the Ric Edelman College of the Arts. 

Email: phdincreativity@rowan.edu

Faculty & staff

The PhD in Creativity is a research-based degree. If you are an artist interested in pursuing a studio-based degree, this program may not fit your needs.

We seek students who have already achieved proficiency in an intellectual pursuit in any field, such that the candidate is prepared for the dissertation stage of a rigorous, but out-of-the-box, PhD. Our students typically have found themselves wanting to transcend the disciplinary limits of their training with an interdisciplinary project. We look for projects that may not easily fit into programs elsewhere.

Our program hires several (as many as three) advisors for each dissertation and the student consults with the faculty of the PhD in Creativity to select the people best suited to the individual student's project. They can be anywhere in the world and we hire them. Many are academics with PhD degrees, others are people of extraordinary achievement in a field relevant to the student's work. We try to have advisors from from different fields to elevate and broaden the work with the student. They are generally intended to meet with their student and to read new work every month so as to finish in the three year time of the program.

As you read exciting things in preparation for your work make a wish list of specific advisors you would like to work and we will try our best to engage them. You need not have ever met them, but tell us if you know them.