The Department of Art is changing its requirements for the Bachelor of Arts program in order to better serve students.
All students are now required to submit a portfolio to be reviewed prior to acceptance to the Bachelor of Arts program. Before this year, only students entering the Bachelor of Fine Arts program were required to submit a portfolio.
“We had one big portfolio review for the Bachelor of Fine Arts students, and what we kind of did was split it up,” said Amy Youngs, the Foundation Program Director. “We now have a foundation review, where we just look at the work from their first year here. Then the second review, if they want to be a Bachelor of Fine Arts student, is just the work for the area they want to enter.
“Our main reason for changing it was that the Bachelor of Arts was seen as the default degree, as opposed to a destination degree,” Youngs said. “It’s really a great degree.”
The change is likely to increase the impressiveness of the degree, Youngs hopes.
“It didn’t really have the prestige that it should because people who didn’t pass other reviews could just continue in the Bachelor of Arts program,” she said. “It was the second choice, but we are trying to change that.”
Youngs said grades are not always the best indicator of how a student is performing, and requiring students to submit a portfolio to enter the BA program would give them a better idea of how well they are doing.
“Everyone who passes the first portfolio will be in the Bachelor of Arts program,” said Ardine Nelson, the Interim Chair of the Department of Art. “From there, they have a year to explore different areas and decide if they want to stay in the Bachelor of Arts program.”
Although students used to wait for their senior or junior year to apply for the Bachelor of Fine Arts, the change has quickened the process.
Students could have applied for the program after taking all the coursework, Youngs said.
“The Bachelor of Fine Arts is a very pointed degree,” Nelson said. “They have to apply after their second year. They can’t wait until they are juniors or seniors. Part of what we’re doing is making the decision process quicker.”
Initial response from students in the program is that the change is for the better.
“It’s a good to make sure that the serious people who are becoming art majors get the full attention from the professors, rather than those who are just art majors because they have nothing else to do,” said Scott Hammond, a junior in photography.
“The reason they made the portfolio requirement was for the not-so-serious art majors,” he said.
To complete the portfolio, students must select the best work they completed in their classes and write a statement to be approved by the faculty.
“It’s not hard to put together the portfolio for the students who did a good job in their classes,” Youngs said.
“It’s a matter of selecting their best work from each of their art classes.
“The hardest part is writing the statement,” she said. “You have to put together a one-page statement about their art making, why they want to be a BA in art, and what they hope to do with that.”
Hammond discussed how he chooses what to discuss in statements such as this one.
“You write about what you’re interested in, what your ideas are, influences, what your ideas are for the future, what you want to do with your degree,” Hammond said.
“You have to explain how your work (came about), and show that it was on purpose, not that you accidentally did something well. The statement shows that you meant to do something well, and you did, and there’s a reason for that,” he said.
