Overview of Mount Royal School of Art (MFA)
Maryland Institute College of Art
The Mount Royal School of Art was created in 1974 as a multidisciplinary program for graduate study. The program of study seeks to broaden definitions of art making, illuminate and discuss current and historical ideas in the discipline, help students toward their own profession and assist them in finding their own voices. Because Mount Royal is not a media-specific program, students are encouraged to work in the ways most appropriate to their individual research. That study can be focused within a specific media or cross over and into other disciplines and media.
The MFA is a 60-unit degree accomplished in four semesters with 48 credits in studio work and 12 credits in liberal arts. All work—practical and theoretical—is at the graduate level, and every effort is made to direct it toward an individual’s particular needs. Mount Royal students are expected to locate themselves at the center of their education, participate in both the MICA and local communities, and take advantage of the many opportunities available in the major metropolitan centers of the northeast.
Though degree requirements are at the core of the program, the 28 students in Mount Royal, along with the 100+ students who comprise MICA’s four other resident graduate programs, are vital components of one another’s education and formation as artists. Faculty and students alike share an intense interest in holding their art to the highest standards of contemporary practice.
Balancing this rigorous atmosphere is Mount Royal’s unique and supportive community of fellow students, faculty, and visiting artists. Group critiques are student-run, while Mount Royal’s student-managed gallery provides invaluable experience in organizing, curating and mounting exhibitions of graduate student work. As a community within the larger graduate community and the College, Mount Royal students are expected to be active participants in the creation of an exciting, dynamic context in which to conduct research. Students contribute to the program on many levels and have a voice in creating and redefining what Mount Royal is and can be.
Mount Royal occupies the recently renovated 5th floor of the Studio Center, joining the Hoffberger School of Painting and Graduate Photography and Digital Imaging program in this new, graduate-themed complex. In addition to private and personal studio spaces, students enjoy a common lounge, on-site computers, a small woodshop and building-wide wireless Internet. As graduate students at MICA, Mount Royal MFA candidates also have access to all classes and facilities, including the Art/Tech Center, main woodshop, metal shop, Decker Library and Media Resource Center.