MCAD MFA
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Letter From the Director – Summer 2022

June 7, 2022
white flowers and green leaves

Hello MCAD MFA Community,

I hope everyone is healthy, safe, and finding what they need this summer.

First, congrats to the class of 2022! They had a beautiful Thesis Exhibition with accompanying thesis essay written by Juleana Enright. We also held a beautiful graduation reception to celebrate all this success.

Second, congratulations to our spring semester Merit, Van Derlip, and Launch Programming award winners:

Currently, we’re gearing up for three exhibitions that will be running concurrently at the MFA Gallery and Studios:

  • 8843 is an exhibition that showcases two students from Focus School of Photography in Greece alongside four students from the MCAD MFA program.
  • See & Say Time: An Exhibition of Paintings is an exhibition that showcases recent work by Keith Christensen ’95.
  • Dissolving The Frontier: New Colorado Video + Performance Art is an exhibition that challenges and reconsiders accepted notions of the American West. Curated by Jason Bernagozzi, this exhibition features new and recent works by four artists living and working along the Front Range of Colorado.

If you’re in the area, please stop by the opening reception this Wednesday, June 8, 5-7pm (masks required). These exhibitions will be on view June 6-24, 2022 by appointment (contact Ellen Mueller at emueller@mcad.edu).

Below, each of the MFA Program updates started with a piece of feedback from students, alumni, faculty, staff, and community members near and far. If you’d like to talk about the program, or share thoughts on its future, please do not hesitate to reach out to me at emueller@mcad.edu.

The MFA 2020 Fund: A Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Scholarship

We have raised $30,908. The fund is now officially endowed, and we awarded our first scholarship this spring — thank you all so much for your support! The first scholarship was awarded to Yanron (Joy) Li ’23 (thank you to our Merit judges, Jhoselin Dominguez and Alyssa Baguss). This year the award was $1500, and we’re hoping that we can boost that to be $2000 next year (to match our other MFA merit awards). To reach this goal, we need to raise $9100 this summer. We hope you will consider contributing and spreading the word to encourage your network to donate to the MFA 2020 Fund. You can also keep track of our progress on the MFA website.

Curriculum

This summer we’re diving into the second iteration of our asynchronous (self-paced) online orientation that focuses on welcoming students into the community, sharing critique approaches, and preparing for the nuts and bolts of graduate study. This past spring we updated based on feedback and then ran the course through user testing (thank you to the folx from class of 2023 who provided feedback!). This summer we’ve added preparatory reading skills for the Criticism & Theory courses, documentation practice, more getting-to-know-each-other activities like online studio visits with each other, practice with emailing professors and mentors, info about moving to the Twin Cities, and a few other items. All of these updates are driven by our ongoing commitment to making the MCAD MFA program as accessible and equitable as possible.

Additionally, this past spring was our second semester of hyflex classes, which means students can attend in-person or remotely, and the classroom is outfitted with multiple screens to assist. All the MCAD MFA faculty go through a special one-on-one training with our excellent Online Teaching and Learning staff to prepare and adapt their classes to this modality. Students reported very positive feedback as faculty have continued to adapt and improve classroom practices, and students have been able to continue their active participation even if care-taking activities pop up, a weather event disrupts car travel, or a Covid case occurs. It also allows for students to participate fully remotely as needed, which has helped multiple students adapt to unexpected life events, like a spouse suddenly getting a job in another location. We are proud to be leading the way with our accessibility.

Looking ahead, we’ve updated the titles of our two classes focused on writing the position paper (formally known as the thesis paper) and preparing the thesis body of work. These classes will now be called Graduation Preparation 1 and 2 (formerly known as Thesis Prep 1 and 2). This change was brought about based on student and mentor feedback to add greater focus on setting students up for success after graduation. All writing of the position paper takes place in the courses, and mentors are relieved of any responsibility for reviewing that written work. This update allows mentors to focus exclusively on the creative practice, bringing their duties in line with the mentor stipend, enhancing the fairness of our pay scale.

Professional Practices

During the past six months, we’ve continued sending students and recent alumni to several new and recurring funded Launch Programs. You can find a full list of all the recipients since 2019 on our Launch Programs page. Congratulations to all!

Also, this past spring we held four online Professional Practices events — some of them were recorded, so check them out when you have a chance! These are all free, public, and online, so feel free to spread the word. You can view our full archive of professional practices talks on our YouTube channel.

Events

This spring, Yuanron (Joy) Li ‘23 curated an exhibition focused on regional fiber artists, Soft Power. This exhibition featured a number of faculty members at institutions with a focus on fibers, which will help us in building a strong network of people who recognize the MCAD MFA program. These artists also did many studio visits with the MFA students, further deepening our relationship with them.

Additionally, we held a huge group of mid-program reviews (21 in total!). The students did a great job and everyone breathed a sigh of relief when the task was completed.

Recruitment

We had a very successful year of recruitment with Alanna Stapleton ‘18 working with us as the graduate admissions counselor, and we couldn’t have done it without her! We have recruited 19 incoming students, who have all started their orientation, and are eager for the fall semester to begin.

This year we’re also going to start collecting demographic data on our incoming students so we can better measure the diversity of our recruitment efforts, and use data to support positive change.

Also, this spring we have continued our successful online presentation program, in which we present to classes of undergraduates who are interested in topics such as “How to Research Grad Schools,” “10 Tips for Taking Successful Gap Years,” “Preparing Your Grad School Application,” or “Studio Visits After Undergrad.” We’ve presented from California to Maine and everywhere in between. If you know of a professor who might like us to present to their class or department, please reach out! (Alanna Stapleton, astapleton@mcad.edu)

Communication and Support

Recently, we’ve added info about the MCAD service areas to our mentor handbook to help mentors understand what is available to their mentees. This was a collaborative effort, and all the service area directors provided feedback to finalize the wording.

We’ve also continued to provide optional monthly meetings for mentors and MFA faculty, which have yielded great conversations and collaborative problem-solving. This heightened communication and transparency continues to serve our goals of making the program as high-quality and responsive as possible to each student’s individual needs.

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In closing, we’ve been very busy the last six months, and it’s important that I call out all the people who make this work possible. Big thanks go to Kiley Van Note, our Assistant Coordinator, Niky Motekallem ‘16, Administrative Assistant in Academic Affairs, Naomi Sack, Director of Academic Administration, and Alonzo Pantoja ‘20 our Professional Practices and Studio Visits assistant, who all make what we do in the MFA Program possible.

Additionally, we’d like to thank our four faculty members who served on the 2021-2022 MFA Committee, which is busy with a lot of work around recruitment and curriculum development: Robert Algeo ‘11, Regan Golden-McNerney, George Hoagland, and Rik Sferra. And last but not least our wonderful Spring 2022 faculty, our classroom visitors, and all the fantastic mentors.

Our work continues, and as always, I am heartened by our strong alumni network, who care deeply about the program’s future, as well as our current students, faculty, and staff. Please do not hesitate to reach out to provide feedback and stay in touch.

Sincerely,

Ellen Mueller
Director, MFA Program
emueller@mcad.edu

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Winter 2021 Letter from the Director

Summer 2021 Letter from the Director

Winter 2020 Letter from the Director

Summer 2020 Letter from the Director

Winter 2019 Letter from the Director