The semester is nearing its end and many students will be walking away from the University with a degree in hand and a chapter in their life closed.

In recognition of the students who dedicated long hours toward the University’s arts program, the Regis Center for Art is now displaying Bachelor of Fine Arts/ Bachelor of Arts Honors exhibitions that display 12 fine arts and two Bachelor of Arts works in the public spaces of the newly built Regis Center. The space was designed specifically to exhibit students’ work.

The 14 students’ artwork is exhibited throughout the two buildings to organize a representation of the long but worthwhile journey through the program.

The exhibit gives graduate students a chance to showcase their last piece of work under the University’s presence before entering the real world. The exhibition not only allows students a chance to advertise their work, but to voice the intentions of their art, which has been supported and strengthened by the University since the first day each student began here.

It is rare to see people who can fend off the dirty grips of consumerism and egoism and work to strengthen our society as a whole. This exhibit is proof that these people do exist.

Many of the students whose work is on display took this opportunity to explain their trajectory in art while others used the attention to make a stance on what they plan to accomplish with their art.

It might seem a little like a beauty pageant where everyone is rooting for world peace, but everyone else knows the real purpose. The contest is meant to make money by tempting audiences to stare aimlessly at the television in a quiet, passive statement of what is beautiful and what is not.

It is a slow, yet steady process of defining standards.

But the artists in this show mean to make more of the exhibit than simple visual appeal. There is real intent and real initiative in the pieces as an inspection reveals.

Philip Gleason is the creator of the sculptures that meet your eyes the minute you step into the main block at the Regis Center.

“My work can be considered a response to or commenting on (people’s apathy about their own behavior) though media,” Gleason said in an explanation of his pieces.

Gleason said he hopes he can bring people to question themselves and their ignorance toward the standards created by society through his work.

Sharon Rockham, with her amazing piece that consists of 18 castings of pregnant women, said she hopes to state the relationship between hope and peace and also between life and future generations.

The use of symbols and indexes in her “Labor of Love” is meant to force people to see her own hope for peace for children of the future.

The art show of the students’ work has made a point to show the University’s support for creative minds and for minds that worry not about what problems artists suffer, but what problems our society suffers. Maybe through this realization we can someday achieve a little peace in this bloodbath world – something we all hope for, but often forget.