The Foundation Program, for first-year students, 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. (The liberal arts curriculum informs students’ ability to construct meaning using the formal elements of art and design.)
Student Work
Program Learning Outcomes
Students will:
Assessment Measures
Student learning in Foundation courses is assessed using level-appropriate rubrics and evaluations of presentations, papers, projects, reflections, exhibitions as well as Departmental Programmatic Assessment projects. Collectively these measures allow us to determine the level and quality of education attained by our students.
- Foundation
- Acquire and apply Fundamental Skills, which include the ability to manipulate art and design fundamentals such as point, line, plane and form to create a resolved and well composed whole. (ILO)
- Demonstrate Critical Thinking Skills including the ability to distinguish between and use rational, intuitive, and critical thinking processes and to construct meaning using visual information. (ILO)
- Discern Visual Quality through identifying visual strengths and weaknesses to create content and construct appropriate resolution. (ILO)
- Build Professionalism through strategies for success such as attentiveness to lecture, demonstration and direction, time management skills, including being prepared in class with the correct materials and turning in assignments on time.
- Develop Quantitative Skills including the ability to use sound principles of proportion to measure, calculate, and transfer dimensions of the observed and built world. (ILO)
- Demonstrate the processes of Research and Investigation utilizing visual and textual resources as sources for inventiveness and novelty. (ILO)
- Develop an Awareness of Social Responsibility by working individually and collaboratively to consider the social and environmental impact of art and design. (ILO)
- Develop Oral Communication Skills as demonstrated through the ability to communicate ideas orally and with clarity through presentations and through critique of students’ own work and the work of their peers.