MFA
Each year, ten exceptional students join our vibrant community of artists and scholars. Over the course of 3 years of full-time* study, they will take studio and seminar classes, supplementing their studies in studio, art history, and art criticism with courses in other disciplines in the humanities and sciences that are relevant to their creative practice. Their interests will be diverse, but they will be united by their ambition to make art that matters, as well as their conviction that art is a form of inquiry in its own right, essential to the academic mission of the university and the production of knowledge as such.
*Students are admitted to the program under the assumption that they will enroll full time for three consecutive years.
2025 MFA thesis exhibition at the Athenaeum. (Photo/Samantha Hurley)
2025 MFA thesis exhibition at the Athenaeum. (Photo/Lindsey Kennedy)
2025 MFA thesis exhibition at the Athenaeum. (Photo/Lindsey Kennedy)
2025 MFA thesis exhibition at the Athenaeum. (Photo/Samantha Hurley)
2025 MFA thesis exhibition at the Athenaeum. (Photo/Lindsey Kennedy)
2025 MFA thesis exhibition at the Athenaeum. (Photo/Lindsey Kennedy)
2025 MFA thesis exhibition at the Athenaeum. (Photo/Lindsey Kennedy)
2025 MFA thesis exhibition at the Athenaeum. (Photo/Lindsey Kennedy)
2025 MFA thesis exhibition at the Athenaeum. (Photo/Samantha Hurley)
Guests interact with artwork in the 2025 MFA thesis exhibition at the Athenaeum. (Photo/Samantha Hurley)
2025 MFA thesis exhibition at the Athenaeum. (Photo/Lindsey Kennedy)
2025 MFA thesis exhibition at the Athenaeum. (Photo/Samantha Hurley)
2025 MFA thesis exhibition at the Athenaeum. (Photo/Samantha Hurley)
2025 MFA thesis exhibition at the Athenaeum. (Photo/Lindsey Kennedy)
2025 MFA thesis exhibition at the Athenaeum. (Photo/Samantha Hurley)
2025 MFA thesis exhibition at the Athenaeum. (Photo/Lindsey Kennedy)
2025 MFA thesis exhibition at the Athenaeum. (Photo/Samantha Hurley)
2025 MFA thesis exhibition at the Athenaeum. (Photo/Lindsey Kennedy)
Full Funding
All of our MFA students are funded for the duration of the 3-year program. Departmental Assistants receive tuition waivers, stipends, and 50% health insurance coverage. First year MFA students work in studio support roles and our students typically teach in their second and third years.
Resources
Students in the MFA program benefit from a flexible, forward-thinking curriculum that allows them to dig deep in one area or cross-pollinate and experiment. And, while their practice is advantaged by access to leading research in a variety of extra-aesthetic fields, our students also benefit from the intimacy of the art school and the micro communities of which it is comprised. Dedicated craftsman, designers, scholars, and artists, our faculty have expertise in a wide range of media, both old and new, and their research is engaged with a diverse array of themes and theoretical frameworks, including ecology, the inhuman, alterity, gender politics, postcolonial studies, mortality, and adornment. In this context and with the advantage of these resources, our MFA students are making objects and ephemera, performances and paintings, photographs and installations, lens-based work and jewelry, textiles and interiors, soundscapes and relational situations.
Handbook and Forms
MFA Studios
Main Art Building
The Glass Gallery - MFA Gallery on the third floor of the Main Art Building
The Glass Gallery
MFA critique space
MFA Studio on the third floor
MFA Studio on the third floor
MFA Studio on the third floor
MFA Studio on the third floor
MFA Studio on the third floor
MFA Studio on the third floor
Third floor MFA hallway
MFA Studio on the third floor
MFA Studio on the third floor of the Main Art Building
MFA Studio on the third floor
MFA Studio on the third floor
Graduate and faculty printmaking studio (second floor)
Graduate and faculty printmaking studio (second floor)
MFA Studio on the second floor
MFA Studio on the second floor
Thomas Street Art Complex
Mickey Boyd in his MFA studio
MFA studios in the jewelry & metalworking wing of TSAC
MFA studios in the jewelry & metalworking wing of TSAC
MFA studio in the jewelry & metalworking wing of TSAC
Ceramics Building
Yoon Hwang in his ceramics studio (Photo/Sidney Chansamone, sid.chansa@gmail.com)
MFA Ceramics studio (Photo/Sidney Chansamone, sid.chansa@gmail.com)
Yoon Hwang in his ceramics studio (Photo/Sidney Chansamone, sid.chansa@gmail.com)
Contact the Grad Office
More information on our graduate programs in Art, Design, Art Education, and Art History can be found using the links above or by contacting the School of Art Graduate Office.
Last updated: December 17, 2025