MFA Fine Arts

MFA Fine Arts student work will demonstrate:

• Disciplinary Knowledge and Skills
  through advanced knowledge of art history and criticism.
• Proficiency in Industry-Standard Skills, Technologies, and Processes
  with advanced expertise in one or more media per industry-standard skills, technologies, and processes.
• Cross-Disciplinary Awareness and Practice
  extensive understanding of the cross disciplinary practices in fine arts and the ability to understand and discuss work in all fine arts media.
• Audience-Focused Research, Historical Context, and Field-Specific Discourse
  through exhibitions and events, the ability to engage audiences in a research driven, context specific, manner.
• Capacity to Identify and Solve Creative Problems
  the ability to approach problems in their work and in their collaborative projects effectively.

MFA Fine Arts student work will demonstrate:

• Innovation
  the ability to innovate conceptually by creating fresh ideas and materially within their chosen media(s).
• Experimentation and play
  the results of experimentation materially, in aesthetic organization and with methods of display, distribution and audience building.

• Challenge to the status quo
  the willingness to challenge conventions and the existing market.
• Bravery in their work and their interactions with others
  by extending and improving the effectiveness of collaboration.

MFA Fine Arts student work will demonstrate:

• Self-awareness
  in critique presentations and artist statements, a self awareness and conscious awareness of the language/rhetoric of their chosen media.
• Capacity to communicate (orally, written, and/or visually) about their practice
  the ability to communicate in a coherent and compelling manner in a thesis and other artist statements.
• Capacity to seek, assemble, evaluate, and ethically apply information and ideas from diverse sources
  the ability to use information, research and sources to be persuasive in speech and writing.
• Analysis of both ethical and aesthetic impacts of art and design
  an understanding of the ethos (ethical basis) and pathos (emotional basis) of written, spoken and visual rhetoric.

MFA Fine Arts student work will demonstrate:

• Understanding of themselves as parts of a larger whole made up of human and non-human beings.
  an understanding of ecology that is the relationships among living organisms and their environment at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere levels.
• Awareness of positionality – in the world, their field, their communities.
  an understanding that art represents cultural and political attitudes about the environment e.g, land use and treatment of human and non human beings in states,non states and various forms of social organization; and a self-consciousness about their individual position within an ecology and environment.
• Ability to work well, collaborate, and build relationships across differences in identity, perspective, aesthetics and disciplines
  a willingness to think critically about their individual views and to consider how they promote or resist tolerance of difference across identities, perspectives, aesthetic positions and disciplines.
• Integration of skills, information, and concepts
  an ability to integrate an understanding of the above in their use of skills, information and concepts.

MFA Fine Arts student work will demonstrate:

• Ability to define aspirations, future goals and their role within the creative economy.
  by frequent critiques, studio visits, artist statements and thesis essays, student work will show defined aspirations, future goals and position their intended role within the creative economy.
• Awareness of audience and ability to cultivate relationships with others in their chosen fields.
  in group and thesis exhibitions and in an artist lecture, student work will demonstrate an ability to create and present a body of work that is coherent, compelling and relevant to an audience.
• Compelling presentation and exhibition skills, through Annual Exhibition, Capstone, and portfolios
  an ability to create and present compelling mid-residency and year end group exhibitions, and a thesis exhibition that highlight students’ aspirations, future goals and their intended role within the creative economy.
• Proficiency in budgeting, time and project management.
  projects, group and thesis exhibitions will show proficiency in budgeting, time and project management.
• Career readiness, as evidenced by strong interpersonal skills, self-advocacy, adaptation, autonomy, initiative, and willingness to both receive and offer feedback
  in group and thesis exhibitions, student work will demonstrate a readiness to enter the field of contemporary art by their by strong interpersonal skills, self-advocacy, adaptation, autonomy, initiative, and willingness to both receive and offer feedback.