Foundation provides core studies for life-long learning and professional practices in the visual arts by teaching fundamental skills that enable students to become adept, well-informed makers. Integrating core visual studies with Liberal Arts curricula enhances students’ ability to construct meaning using the formal elements of art and design.
| First-year students learn the art-making and critical-thinking skills they need to become inventive, informed makers. A personal vision emerges from the confluence of visual, intuitive, and rational thinking. Underlying this synthesis is the belief that meaningful artistic investigation combines creativity with problem solving and defining. | |
| Foundation Year – 1st Term Life Drawing Drawing and Composition Principles of Design Form and Space Liberal Arts and Sciences |
The core curriculum includes Life Drawing, Drawing and Composition, Principles of Design, and Form and Space. Students take these four studio courses as a part of a section, where peer collaboration promotes creative investigation, construction of meaning, and appropriate risk-taking. |
| Foundation Year – 2nd Term Life Drawing Drawing and Composition Connections Through Color and Design Form and Space Liberal Arts and Sciences Elective |
In the second term, students continue Drawing and Composition and Form and Space, and add Connections Through Color and Design, an Integrated Learning course. They can take Creative Practices and Responses, a unique studio course that focuses on the study and practice of creative thinking that bridges art and design disciplines in place of second-term Life Drawing. Second-term students also select an Elective that introduces the majors. |
| Foundation Forward | The spring Foundation Forward seminar helps them select this major. They may elect to pursue an Interdisciplinary Concentration by entering one of the majors and taking a number of elective courses outside the major. |
| Paris Trip | Each year Foundation students travel to Paris for ten days during spring break to view art in an extraordinary urban environment. |
| Department Heads | Department Chair, Katie Phillips |
| Associate Chair, Professor, Randall Lavender | |
| Foundation Department > | Foundation Year – 1st Term Life Drawing Drawing and Composition Principles of Design Form and Space Liberal Arts and Sciences |
Foundation Year – 2nd Term Life Drawing Drawing and Composition Connections Through Color and Design Form and Space Liberal Arts and Sciences Elective |
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More content is available in the complete Course Description and Curricula (PDF)
| Fall | Spring | |||
| Freshman Year | FNDT110/111 | Form and Space I/II | 2.0 | 2.0 |
| *FNDT115 | Principles of Design | 2.0 | ---- | |
| ILMS100 | Connections through Color and Design | ---- | 2.0 | |
| FNDT145 | Studio Elective | ---- | 1.0 | |
| FNDT180 | Life Drawing I | 3.0 | ---- | |
| **FNDT181 -or- | Life Drawing II | ---- | 2.0 | |
| FNDT170 | Creative Practices and Responses | |||
| FNDT190/191 | Drawing and Composition I/II | 2.0 | 2.0 | |
| AHCS120 | Introduction to Visual Culture | 3.0 | ---- | |
| AHCS121 | Modern Art History | ---- | 3.0 | |
| ENGL104 | Critical Analysis and Semiotics | 2.0 | ---- | |
| ENGL106 | Composition and Critical Thought | ---- | 3.0 | |
| SSCI130 | Cultural Studies | 2.0 | ---- | |
| Total Credits per Semester | 16.0 | 15.0 | ||
| Descriptions for courses listed in grey boxes are located in the Liberal Arts and Sciences section. | ||||
* Students may elect to take the photography option Principles of Design section.
** Both Life Drawing I and Life Drawing II are recommended for Toy Design, Fashion Design, and Digital Media majors.
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