Academics

Foundation


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.
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		  

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.

See student form and space projects, life drawings, color and design, and drawing and composition work.
View Work