Foundation Program

The Foundation Program provides a unified and dynamic experience designed to build a durable framework for all areas of study in Visual Arts. This program is founded upon intensive lecture, studio, and lab investigation of techniques, methods, and concepts.

The curriculum broadens and expands a student’s formal creative design vocabulary, while introducing new ways of thinking about images, time, space, and audience. This program encourages students to think analytically and to use their imagination to develop an awareness of the role of artists in our culture.

Students with a major in Visual Arts and a studio concentration (Animation, Cinematic Arts, Graphic Design, Photography, Print Media) are required to take the following courses:

Photography Concentration

The Photography concentration is committed to teaching students the technical, aesthetic, theoretical, and historical aspects of the medium. An emphasis on increasing the student’s visual literacy within the highly mediated visual environment that we inhabit is central to the development of creative work. Courses in digital and traditional imaging, lighting, and camera management lay the foundation from which more advanced conceptual, technical and aesthetic issues are formulated. In-depth investigations of the history of photography help to articulate the role that the medium has played in visual culture over time. At all levels of coursework, students are encouraged to explore areas of personally generated subject matter as a means of engaging camera, self and environment. Current technological developments in the medium are emphasized at all levels of the photography curriculum along, with darkroom-based tools. Use of photography in conjunction with other media and methods is explored in upper-level courses, including installation, performance and time-based media.

For B.F.A. students

with a concentration in Photography, the following are required in addition to the visual arts core courses:

• ART 327 - History and Theory of Photography (3.00)
• ART 361 - Digital Darkroom (3.00)
• ART 362 - Black and White Photography (3.00)
• ART 364 - Studio Photography (3.00)
• ART 365 - Photography in Multimedia Environments (3.00)
• ART 366 - Documentary Photography (3.00)
• ART 461 - Advanced Photographic Compositing (3.00)
• ART 489 - Senior Projects (3.00)