LIM College students helped clean up New York City parks as a required part of their Orientation.

Traditionally, Freshman Orientation consists of students learning their way around campus, meeting their classmates, and getting ready for the start of classes. Yet for incoming students at LIM College, Orientation is also a time to help improve the local community that they are becoming members of. So on August 20, hundreds of new LIM College students fanned out in small groups around New York City to volunteer for a variety of community service activities.

Projects the students participated in included: working to beautify parks in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx; assembling activity bags for pediatric patients at New York University Medical Center; helping the American Cancer Society and Gay Men’s Health Crisis prepare for upcoming special events; cleaning spaces for children and their families at the Ronald McDonald House; organizing clothing and dressing mannequins at Bottomless Closet (an organization that provides business attire for disadvantaged women); and sorting through items donated to Housing Works (an organization dedicated to fighting AIDS and homelessness).

 This is the second consecutive year that LIM College has made community service projects a mandatory part of its weeklong New Student Orientation.

 Shatika Robinson of Paterson, New Jersey is a freshman who helped clear weeds at Manhattan’s Riverside Park. She said “It was a good experience. I had fun while serving the community. I always enjoy doing community service and would like to go on and get involved in projects that help homeless men and women.”

 Arianna Pantin, a freshman from Deer Park, New York who also helped beautify Riverside Park said, “The park has a small staff for this type of work, so I’m glad we were able to come in and help them.” 

Says LIM College President Elizabeth S. Marcuse, “Orientation sets the tone for the academic year and establishes expectations for our students. Community service is an integral part of co-curricular life, so we felt it was important to incorporate it into the college experience as early as possible. Performing community service helps students develop an appreciation for diversity and privilege, and exposes them to some of the many issues facing our local area. It is our hope that this experience motivates them to stay involved in the community throughout the year.”

SEPTEMBER 14 – DECEMBER 9, 2010

School of Visual Arts (SVA) announces the Fall 2010 Art in the First Person lecture series, 12 free talks that bring together notable artists, critics and writers for in-depth discussions on issues in contemporary art.

All Art in the First Person events are free and open to the public. No reservations are required. Please visit www.sva.edu/events or call 212.592.2010 for more information.

Event Details

Alexi Worth
Tuesday, September 14, 6:30pm
133/141 West 21 Street, Room 101C
Alexi Worth is a painter whose work combines formal simplicity and humor, often relying on interrupted, cropped or overshadowed views. Writing in The New York Times, critic Roberta Smith described Worth’s paintings as marked by “quirky realism and deliberate surfaces.” A senior critic at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate Program in Fine Art, Worth has curated exhibitions in Boston and New York; and has written about art for Art in America, Artforum, The New Yorker and other publications. Presented by the BFA Visual & Critical Studies Department.

Not Nature Poems: A Discussion of Current Trends in Ecopoetics
Thursday, September 16, 6:30pm
133/141 West 21 Street, Room 101C
The first in the Quips and Cranks series of panel discussions on poetics in the arts, this event examines how artists are reconceiving their work in respect to nature. Poets Brenda Ijima and Jonathan Skinner join painter Rackstraw Downes and author Joan Richardson to discuss recent developments in their work regarding how to make art in relation to devastating human-engendered changes in the natural environment. Moderated by poets Vincent Katz and Tim Peterson. Presented by the MFA Art Criticism and Writing Department.

Indecent Exposure: A Discussion and Screening of Films You are Unlikely to See Elsewhere
Monday, September 27, 6:30pm
SVA Theatre, 333 West 23 Street
On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Congressional decision to require the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to consider “general standards of decency and respect” in awarding grants, the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) and the BFA Visual & Critical Studies Department at SVA present a double-feature screening of Destricted(2006) — a collection of short films by visual artists Marina Abramovic, Matthew Barney, Cecily Brown, Larry Clark, Marilyn Minter and Richard Prince, among others, all exploring the boundaries between pornography and art — and Larry Clark’s Ken Park (2002), which has had limited distribution due to its controversial sexual content. The evening includes a discussion with some of the filmmakers.

Ammiel Alcalay
“To Write a Republic”: Experience, Heroism and Poetics in the National Security State
Wednesday, September 29, 7pm
SVA Theatre, 333 West 23 Street
Poet, novelist, critic, scholar and activist Ammiel Alcalay will discuss the role of poetry and poetics as active thought and resistance to the restructuring of North American society during the Cold War. Alcalay’s work has ranged from scholarship, translation and activist writings on the Middle East and the Balkans, to recontextualizing the “New American Poetry” in political terms. His books include: the cairo notebooks (Singing Horse Press, 1993); from the warring factions (Beyond Baroque, 2002); Scrapmetal (Factory School, 2007); After Jews & Arabs (University of Minnesota Press, 1993); Memories of Our Future(City Lights, 1999); and translations from Bosnian, Hebrew and Arabic, including Semezdin Mehmedinovic’s Sarajevo Blues (City Lights, 1998). His latest book, Islanders, was recently published by City Lights and a new book of essays, A Little History, will be published later this year by Fred Dewey Books. Presented by the MFA Art Criticism and Writing Department.

Robert Feintuch
Thursday, October 7, 7pm
209 East 23 Street, 3rd-floor Amphitheater
Robert Feintuch is an American painter who has a history of using himself as a model, though the results are not traditional self-portraits. He exhibits in the United States and Europe and is the recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation Residency in Bellagio, Italy, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other honors. Feintuch is represented by the Sonnabend Gallery in New York City. Presented by the BFA Fine Arts Department.

Lynne Tillman
Words Are Images, Too
Thursday, October 14, 7pm
SVA Theatre, 333 West 23 Street
Lynne Tillman will talk about her fiction, especially those works that address art and visual culture using stories and characters. In writing alongside art, Tillman engages a perpetual problem: How to discuss, describe, and comment upon one medium through another. Tillman has crossed and recrossed the lines between fiction and criticism often, especially in This Is Not It: Stories by Lynne Tillman (D.A.P., 2002). She is the author of the novels Haunted Houses (Serpent’s Tail, 1987); Motion Sickness (Serpent’s Tail, 1991); Cast in Doubt (Serpent’s Tail, 1992); No Lease on Life (Mariner Books, 1998); and the story collections Absence Makes the Heart (Serpent’s Tail, 1990) and The Madame Realism Complex(Semiotext(e), 1992). Her non-fiction books include The Velvet Years: Warhol’s Factory 1965 – 1967 (Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1995);The Broad Picture (Serpent’s Tail, 1997); and Bookstore: The Life and Times of Jeannette Watson and Books & Co(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1999). She writes regularly on art, books, and culture and contributes frequently to artists’ books and museum catalogues. Presented by the MFA Art Criticism and Writing Department.

Arthur I. Miller
Einstein and Picasso: Abstract Art, Abstract Science
Tuesday, October 19, 6:30pm
133/141 West 21 Street, Room 101C
Science historian Arthur I. Miller’s research focuses on the mind’s use of visual imagery in creative scientific and artistic thinking, as well as the concepts of intuition, symmetry and beauty. He is the author of Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time and the Beauty That Causes Havoc (Basic Books, 2001) and 137: Jung, Pauli and the Pursuit of a Scientific Obsession(W.W. Norton & Company, 2010). Miller founded the Department of Science & Technology at University College London; is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a Corresponding Fellow of l’Académie Internationale d’Histoire des Sciences; was awarded fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation; and has received grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, National Endowment for the Humanities and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Presented by the BFA Fine Arts Department.

Danielle Mysliwiec
Tuesday, November 2, 6:30pm
133/141 West 21 Street, Room 101C
Artist Danielle Mysliwiec creates abstract paintings of intricately woven surfaces that are at once coming together and coming undone. In 2005 she co-founded the feminist performance group Brainstormers, which challenges gender discrimination in the art world. In her talk, Mysliwiec will trace the development of her paintings and various experimental processes in acrylic, digital and oil mediums; shed light on studio practice and life as an emerging artist; and give a brief overview of her work as an activist in the art world. Mysliwiec has exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, the Bronx Museum of the Arts and other galleries and museums, and is currently assistant professor of painting and drawing at American University. Presented by the BFA Visual & Critical Studies Department.

Rona Pondick
Tuesday, November 16, 7pm
209 East 23 Street, 3rd-floor Amphitheater
Rona Pondick’s stainless-steel sculptures represent human-animal and human-tree hybrids. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is held in numerous public collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Morgan Library & Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. She has received numerous awards and grants, including the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Pondick is represented by Sonnabend Gallery, New York, and Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris/Salzburg. Presented by the BFA Fine Arts Department.

Peter Schjeldahl
Of Ourselves and of Our Origins: Subjects of Art
Thursday, November 18, 7pm
SVA Theatre, 333 West 23 Street
Critic Peter Schjeldahl will pose the question, “At a time when art is being publicly gamed to exhaustion, can we still, or again, speak sensibly of what we like about it, deep down?” Schjeldahl has been the art critic of The New Yorker since 1998. Prior to that he was a regular art critic for The New York Times, The Village Voice, ARTnews and 7 Days, and published five books of poetry between 1967and 1981. His collections of criticism include The Hydrogen Jukebox (1991) and Let’s See: Writings on Art from The New Yorker(2008). He won the Frank Jewett Mather Award for Excellence in Art Criticism in 1980 and the Clark Prize for Excellence in Arts Writing in 2008. Presented by the MFA Art Criticism and Writing Department.

Peter Hristoff
Tuesday, November 23, 6:30pm
133/141 West 21 Street, Room 101C
SVA alumnus and faculty member Peter Hristoff (BFA 1981 Fine Arts) is a native of Turkey, a country that continues to inspire his work, from paintings and prints to patterned prayer rugs. He has exhibited in galleries across the U.S. and Turkey, including the Hagia Sophia Museum in Istanbul and the Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller Gallery in New York. Hristoff will discuss his work and a recent collaboration with a collective of rug weavers in Gullubahce, Turkey. Presented by the BFA Fine Arts and BFA Visual & Critical Studies Departments.

Between Picture and Viewer: The Image in Contemporary Painting
Thursday, December 9, 7pm
SVA Theatre, 333 West 23 Street
A discussion moderated by Katy Siegel featuring a panel of three noteworthy contemporary painters: Josephine Halvorson, Jim Hyde and Dana Schutz. This event is being held in conjunction with the exhibition “Between Picture and Viewer: The Image in Contemporary Painting,” on view at the Visual Arts Gallery, 601 West 26th Street, 15th floor, November 23 – December 22. Siegel is an author and professor of art history at Hunter College, a contributing editor at Artforum and co-author of Art Works: Money (Thames & Hudson, 2004). Presented by the BFA Visual & Critical Studies Department.

About SVA

School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City is an established leader and innovator in the education of artists. From its inception in 1947, the faculty has been comprised of professionals working in the arts and art-related fields. SVA provides an environment that nurtures creativity, inventiveness and experimentation, enabling students to develop a strong sense of identity and a clear direction of purpose.

Image: Robert Feintuch, Looking Out, 2007, polymer emulsion and oil paint on honeycomb panel. Courtesy Sonnabend Gallery, New York

For more information, please contact the School of Visual Arts at proffice@sva.edu or 212.592.2010.

Click here to subscribe to the Visual Arts Briefs, SVA’s weekly digest of news and events.

Berkeley College students enrolled in an online World Cultures class recently partnered with Casa de los Angeles in Mexico as part of an Academic Service Learning project. Casa de los Angeles is a nonprofit center that supports underprivileged families by providing such services as daycare, transitional housing, a food bank and medical care. The Berkeley College students created blogs designed to educate and engage supporters and to attract volunteers to the family support center.

 Berkeley College students enrolled in an online World Cultures class recently partnered with Casa de los Angeles in Mexico as part of an Academic Service Learning project. Casa de los Angeles is a nonprofit center that supports underprivileged families by providing such services as daycare, transitional housing, a food bank and medical care. The Berkeley College students created blogs designed to educate and engage supporters and to attract volunteers to the family support center.   
 
“This hands-on project, along with in-depth class discussions and reflective journals, helped enrich the study of world cultures and provided a transformative learning experience,” said Marilyn Kulik, PhD, Humanities and Social Sciences, Online, School of Liberal Arts, who taught the 12-week course.   

In an online post following the project one of the student teams wrote: “By creating this sample blog we hope to contribute ideas for bringing awareness to potential donors and volunteers to help expand the organization and help end poverty. The service project has taught us responsibility and allowed us to help strengthen a community.”
 
Casa de los Angeles Founder Donna Quathamer said that the blog created by Berkeley College Online students will become an “integral part of the social media strategy” for the center.
 
“With better communication, we will be able to connect with former volunteers as well as with new supporters who have hopes of joining us,” Ms. Quathamer said.
 
To read more about the Casa de los Angeles Academic Service Learning project visit Dr. Kulik’s blog at http://professorkulik.blogspot.com/2010/06/congratulations-soc-205-online-service.html

Across the river in Brooklyn, two images from alumnus Damian Wampler’s (MPS 2009 Digital Photography) series Darfur in Brooklyn have recently been acquired by the Brooklyn Museum. The series consists of images taken of Omar, a Darfuri refugee and taxi driver living in Kensington, Brooklyn. One image, Untitled 1 (Kitchen), will be on display in the American Identities galleries, August – December 2010.

Current students and a recent graduate were recently recognized in two New York-based creative competitions. Telling the story of a girl who dresses up as a witch for Halloween and tries to fly, the children’s book Only a Witch Can Fly is illustrated by alumnus Taeeun Yoo (MFA 2005 Illustration as Visual Essay). Yoo’s linoleum-block-print illustrations use a muted palette of green, brown, orange and black, and earned her the 2010 Ezra Jack Keats Award for New Illustrator. Presented by the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation and the New York Public Library, the awards are given to one writer and one illustrator each year.

Tackling the issue of drunk driving in a way that’s both engaging for the consumer and promotional for a vendor, BFA Advertising and Graphic Design Department students Mark Forsman and Vinny Garbellano created Walk the Line, a proposal for an iPhone app that allows users to self-administer a version of typical sobriety test: walking a straight line. Forsman and Garbellano conceived the app as a promotional tool for Jack Daniels, and their proposal won Best In Show at Wrath of Cannes, a New York advertising competition that runs concurrently with the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival in France. Forsman and Garbellano are both students of instructor Frank Anselmo, who teaches Unconventional Advertising at SVA.

School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City is an established leader and innovator in
the education of artists. From its inception in 1947, the faculty has been comprised of professionals working in the arts and art-related fields. SVA provides an environment that nurtures creativity, inventiveness and experimentation, enabling students to develop a strong sense of identity and a clear direction of purpose.

Images: (top) KedsWhitney Works on Canvas, 2010. Courtesy of Night Agency; (bottom) Damian Wampler, Untitled 1 (Kitchen), 2009

For more information, please contact the School of Visual Arts at proffice@sva.edu or 212.592.2010.

Click here to subscribe to the Visual Arts Briefs, SVA’s weekly digest of news and events.

LIM College is one of the best colleges in the Northeast according to the nationally known education services company, The Princeton Review. It is one of 218 institutions The Princeton Review recommends in its “Best in the Northeast” section of its website feature, “2011 Best Colleges: Region by Region,” posted on PrincetonReview.com. LIM College is also featured in its book, “The Best Northeastern Colleges: 2011 Edition” (Random House / Princeton Review Books).

Says Robert Franek, Princeton Review’s Senior VP / Publishing, “We’re pleased to recommend LIM College to readers of our book and users of our site as one of the best schools to earn their undergrad degree. We chose it and the other terrific institutions we name as ‘regional best’ colleges mainly for their excellent academic programs. From several hundred schools in each region, we winnowed our list based on institutional data we collected directly from the schools, our visits to schools over the years, and the opinions of our staff, plus college counselors and advisors whose recommendations we invite. We also take into account what students at the schools reported to us about their campus experiences at them on our 80-question student survey for this project. Only schools that permit us to independently survey their students are eligible to be considered for our regional ‘best’ lists.” 

The 218 colleges The Princeton Review chose for its “Best Northeastern Colleges” book and website list are located in 11 states. The Princeton Review also designated 152 colleges in the Midwest, 120 in the West, and 133 in the Southeast as best in their locales on the company’s “2011 Best Colleges: Region by Region” lists. Collectively, the 623 colleges named “regional best(s)” constitute about 25% of the nation’s 2,500 four-year colleges.

For this project, The Princeton Review asks students attending the colleges and universities to rate their own schools on several issues – from the accessibility of their professors to quality of the campus food –  and answer questions about themselves, their fellow students, and their campus life. Comments from surveyed students are quoted in the school profiles on The Princeton Review site. One student comment in the profile on LIM College described it as “the best place to learn about business and fashion as one.”

The National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Philip Johnson Glass House, and the School of Visual Arts (SVA) have launched glasshouseconversations.org, a website that extends the signature Glass House Conversations program, an invitational held at the Glass House during 2008 and 2009 with cultural, business and educational leaders sponsored by Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope.

The goal of the new site is to reach an international audience of people with design-related interests and provide them with an on-going forum and new community for insightful conversations. 

The site has been in development since last fall through an inventive partnership between the MFA Interaction Design Department at SVA and the Philip Johnson Glass House. Its goal is to adapt the intimate Glass House Conversations series to an expanded digital forum, and build on the legacy of architect Philip Johnson’s home in New Canaan, Connecticut, a place that architectural historian Vincent Scully called the “longest running salon in America.” It was at the Glass House that Philip Johnson and longtime partner David Whitney brought together people like Andy Warhol, Frank Stella and Robert A.M. Stern for discussions that shaped the cultural dialogue of the 20th century. This project engages a new, on-line audience and expands the conversation into the 21st century.

“The challenge was two-fold: first, how to engage a broader audience in the design leadership conversations that occurred at the Glass House and became a branded program; and then how to stay true to what Philip Johnson and David Whitney did best- always staying on the cutting edge of innovation,” said Christy MacLear, Executive Director for the Philip Johnson Glass House.  “SVA was the perfect partner to envision how a meaningful dialogue could occur in a digital forum, examples of which were limited to date. The students’ work is truly groundbreaking.”

Each week on glasshouseconversations.org a host puts forth a provocation in the form of a question or a debate topic, and members of the public worldwide have up to five days to respond. Alice Rawsthorn, the design critic for the International Herald Tribune, hosts the discussion for the week of July 19, and upcoming conversations will be hosted by leaders in cultural fields, including John Maeda, Ralph Caplan, and John Lilly.

Six students from SVA–Clint Beharry, Derek Chan, Kristin Graefe, Katie Koch, Russell Maschmeyer, and Eric St. Onge–developed the site from the fall of 2009 through the spring of 2010 in the course Continuing the Conversation. “Glass House Conversations was a dynamic opportunity for our students to extend the learning from the classroom, and work in a creative collaboration with clients who care deeply both about design and the community at large,” said Liz Danzico, chair, MFA Interaction Design Department at SVA, who directed the project with Jason Santa Maria, mentor, and Dorothy Dunn, former Director of Visitor Experience for the Glass House. In the MFA Interaction Design Department, students work both individually and collaboratively to learn the concepts and methods of interaction design, starting with an understanding of people and the environments that drive their needs, goals and experiences. Course materials consider these social constructs and human experiences as the basis for approaching problems across media.

SVA will continue to be involved through the site’s launch as two students from the MFA Design Criticism Department–Emily Leibin and Molly Heintz–have been named fellows at the Glass House to help shape content for the site, inviting moderators and designing questions to inspire on-line exchange and use. Initial audience use has been targeted to the 120 leaders involved in the 2008 and 2009 Conversations and will expand to include the 100 participants of Modern Views, a project for which contemporary artists, architects, and designers created and donated works of art and written statements, capturing their thoughts and inspirations about the Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Farnsworth House (1945-51), the Philip Johnson Glass House (1949), and the architects who created them.

About SVA

The MFA Interaction Design Department at SVA is an inventive two-year program that requires students to intimately understand how design can affect human behavior, and to think more holistically about the products and services they’re creating. The program explores the strategic role of interaction design in shaping everyday life, and intends to increase the relevancy of design to business and society so designers can make a difference.

The MFA Design Criticism Department at SVA trains students to research, analyze and evaluate design and its social and environmental implications. Drawing on the broadest possible definition of design, the two-year curriculum emphasizes the skills and knowledge relevant to those who wish to apply critical thinking about design in a range of media, and addresses graphic, Web and product design as well as fashion, urban planning and network systems.

School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City is an established leader and innovator in the education of artists. From its inception in 1947, the faculty has been comprised of professionals working in the arts and art-related fields. SVA provides an environment that nurtures creativity, inventiveness and experimentation, enabling students to develop a strong sense of identity and a clear direction of purpose.
 
About the Philip Johnson Glass House and Modern Views

The Philip Johnson Glass House is an international destination and celebrated example of modernist architecture and has been named as the Center for Modernism by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. It operates as a programmatic, scholastic and advisory center for modern architecture, art and landscape.

Spearheaded by Glass House leadership, as the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Center for Modernism, the Modern Views project represents a year-long initiative to raise $1M for critical site preservation efforts at both of these Modernist icons.

About the National Trust for Historic Preservation

The National Trust for Historic Preservation is a non-profit membership organization bringing people together to protect, enhance and enjoy the places that matter to them. By saving the places where great moments from history – and the important moments of everyday life – took place, the National Trust for Historic Preservation helps revitalize neighborhoods and communities, spark economic development and promote environmental sustainability. With headquarters in Washington, DC, eight regional and field offices, 29 historic sites, and partner organizations in 50 states, territories, and the District of Columbia, the National Trust for Historic Preservation provides leadership, education, advocacy and resources to a national network of people, organizations and local communities committed to saving places, connecting us to our history and collectively shaping the future of America’s stories.

For more information, please contact the School of Visual Arts at proffice@sva.edu or 212.592.2010.

Click here to subscribe to the Visual Arts Briefs, SVA’s weekly digest of news and events.

Berkeley College is pleased to announce the appointment of Teri Duda as Senior Vice President, Government Affairs. In this role, she will represent the College in its interactions with municipal, county, state and federal legislators.

 “Teri’s extraordinary understanding of government operations and long-established relationships with legislators make her a successful advocate for the College community,” said Berkeley College President Dario A. Cortes, PhD.

 Ms. Duda most recently served Berkeley College as Senior Vice President of External Affairs. In this role, she built partnerships and established programming in communities surrounding several campuses of the College.

 She currently holds board positions with the Greater Paramus Chamber of Commerce and the Newark Regional Business Partnership, among other organizations, and serves as Vice President of Education for the Greater Paterson Chamber of Commerce.

 Ms. Duda recently was selected among the 2010 “Faces of New Jersey,” a project recognizing women who have a major impact on the State of New Jersey.

 Ms. Duda holds a BA from San Diego State University and an MA from the University of Wisconsin. She is a Bloustein Fellow of the John Heldridge Leadership Institute on Workforce Development from Rutgers University.

 A leader in business education for 79 years, Berkeley College maintains an enrollment of more than 8,000 students, including 665 international students in its Baccalaureate and Associate degree programs. The College has two New York campuses in Midtown Manhattan and White Plains, an Extension Center in Lower Manhattan in the Wall Street area; four New Jersey campuses located in Woodland Park (formerly West Paterson), Paramus, Woodbridge, and Newark; and Berkeley College Online. Concentrations are offered in more than 20 career fields, and all campuses are accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. The College’s website address is http://www.berkeleycollege.edu

Staschak, President and CEO of Bryant & Stratton College, replaces Bryant H. “By” Prentice, III, chairman of the Board of Bryant & Stratton, who retired as vice president of the APC Board of Trustees after nearly two decades of dedicated service.

“First and foremost we salute and thank By Prentice for providing years of wisdom, counsel and friendship to the members of the APC Board of Trustees. His experience will truly be missed,” said Stephen J. Jerome, president of the APC board and president of Monroe College. “And we welcome John Staschak to the board. His vast experience in higher education will add tremendous value to our Board and to the services we provide to APC members and their students.”

APC represents a select group of 28 privately owned, accredited, degree-granting colleges across New York. Trustees carry out the mission of the association by educating state and federal decision makers in favor of legislation and policy that supports the goals of higher education in New York and helps make college more affordable and accessible for all students.

Staschak, a Niagara Falls native and current Ransomville resident, joined Bryant & Stratton College in 1987 and served as Controller and Assistant Secretary of the College until 1990.  Throughout his career he served as Vice President of Finance, Vice President and Regional Manager, Western Region and Secretary, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President of Operations. He also served as Treasurer from 1989 to 1999 and became President & CEO in 2001.

Staschak holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from the State University of New York at Buffalo and a Master of Business Administration with an emphasis in finance from Canisius College. He is a member of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education Substantive Change Committee.

MUSEUM VETERAN INVITES ARTISTS TO REINVENT THE MFA

Beginning in the summer of 2011, the School of Visual Arts (SVA) will offer a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Art Practice, a low-residency, interdisciplinary program of study that offers experienced artists an opportunity to deepen their studio practice and to develop an advanced body of work under the guidance of some of the world’s foremost artists and critics. The program will be chaired by educator and art museum professional David A. Ross.  

Ross has assembled a leading group of artists, curators, historians and critics to serve as faculty members, guest lecturers and mentors in the new program, including: Vito Acconci, Cory Arcangel, Dara Birnbaum, Liam Gillick, Terrence Koh, Ming Wei Lee, Glenn Ligon, Stephen Henry Madoff, Robert Pincus-Witten, Gary Simmons, András Szántó, Carrie Mae Weems, Lawrence Weiner, and Terry Winters, among others.

Ross cites the fully-interdisciplinary approach to the MFA degree as an emerging trend in art education. “The MFA in Art Practice is based on the idea that increasingly artists do not wish to define their practice by a specific medium or discipline,” he says. “In this post-Conceptual era, artists often pursue their practice by engaging an idea first, which then may involve a combination of media, technologies and techniques.” Ross explains, “With the flexibility that a low-residency program offers, SVA will provide a new option for practicing artists–across the county and the world–to advance their careers while taking advantage of the remarkable range of resources available to students at SVA.”

The immersive 66-credit degree program is comprised of a rigorous curriculum with coursework structured to be delivered via a feature-rich, interactive online learning environment throughout the course of two academic calendar years, in addition to a series of three intensive 6-week summer sessions to be held at the College’s campus in New York City. During the summer sessions, students will further their body of work during dedicated studio time, while attending classes, seminars and critiques and engaging with the diverse cultural offerings and resources that the city of New York and the vibrant SVA community provide.
 
Required courses include: Art History: Exploring the Interdisciplinary, which examines the role of art history in preparing and developing one’s own artistic direction; Art History: Challenging the Conventional, which contrasts the canonical history of Modernism with emerging histories, offering a different reading of the social and political context of art history; Artists’ Writings, which looks at the interventions visual artists have made into the art criticism of their time via essays, manifestos, poems, letters, artists’ books and artist-run publications; Autobiography of Place, which investigates how artists situate creative practice in everyday life and how their communities can inform their work; Bases of Criticism, which delves into the prominent theoretical positions within past and present art criticism; The Journal: A Writing Workshop, where students produce a daily record of their work in writing or another platform; as well as workshops in Performance, Advanced Video and Sound Editing, Advanced Digital Imaging, Art Law and Art Business. During each term, students will participate in the program’s Graduate Seminar, as well as Studio Practice and Thesis Preparation courses.

An advocate for contemporary art and artists for the past 40 years, David A. Ross was director of The Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Ross has been active in a curatorial capacity since 1971, when he was named the world’s first curator of video art at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York. A widely-published author and frequent lecturer, Ross has taught at the University of California, San Diego, the San Francisco Art Institute, Harvard University and Columbia University. Ross was one of the founders of Artists’ Pension Trust, a pioneering financial planning program for working artists. He has served as a juror and commissioner at numerous international shows and exhibitions. In addition to chairing the MFA in Art Practice Department, Ross teaches in the BFA Fine Arts Department and serves as a special assistant to SVA President David Rhodes.

SVA launched its first low-residency graduate program in fall 2009 with the MPS in Digital Photography Online/Summer Residency-a one-year program designed for working professionals who are looking to advance their skills but cannot relocate to New York for a full calendar year of study. To provide students in the program with a complete learning experience, SVA developed a robust web-based learning platform, including interactive video and audio components that allow for synchronous and asynchronous meetings, exchanges in real time and virtual office hours.

School of Visual Arts is a comprehensive college of art and design offering the degree of Bachelor of Fine Arts in advertising; animation; cartooning; computer art, computer animation and special effects; film and video; fine arts; graphic design; illustration; interior design; photography; and visual and critical studies; the degree of Master of Fine Arts in art criticism and writing; computer art; design; design criticism; fine arts; illustration as visual essay; interaction design; photography, video and related media; and social documentary film; the degree of Master of Professional Studies in art therapy; branding (beginning fall 2010); digital photography; and live action short film (beginning fall 2010); and the degree of Master of Arts in Teaching in art education.

School of Visual Arts is accredited by the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. SVA is an accredited institutional member of the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD), the International Association of Independent Schools for Art and Design (AIAS) and the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD).

School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City is an established leader and innovator in the education of artists. From its inception in 1947, the faculty has been comprised of professionals working in the arts and art-related fields. SVA provides an environment that nurtures creativity, inventiveness and experimentation, enabling students to develop a strong sense of identity and a clear direction of purpose.

Prospective students can request more information through the Office of Graduate Admissions at SVA by calling 212.592.2107 or via email at gradadmissions@sva.edu, or by contacting the Department via email at mfaartpractice@sva.edu.

For more information, please contact the School of Visual Arts at proffice@sva.edu or 212.592.2010.Click here to subscribe to the Visual Arts Briefs, SVA’s weekly digest of news and events.

 “Laura has done an excellent job of building and strengthening internal and external communications from Berkeley College,” said Berkeley College President Dario A. Cortes, PhD. “Her new position allows her to extend this correspondence and collaboration to our alumni base and constituents in the community at large.”

 Ms. Jewell most recently served Berkeley College as Director of Communications. In this role, she worked closely with Dr. Cortes, his Chief of Staff and his Cabinet to manage communications from the President’s Office.

 Utilizing her experience in marketing and communications, Ms. Jewell has served as a professional speaker, guest lecturer, mentor and workshop instructor to business associations, colleges and universities.

 Ms. Jewell holds an MBA from the New York Institute of Technology and a BA in Marketing from Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY.

 A leader in business education for 79 years, Berkeley College maintains an enrollment of more than 8,000 students, including 665 international students in its Baccalaureate and Associate degree programs. The College has two New York campuses in Midtown Manhattan and White Plains, an Extension Center in Lower Manhattan in the Wall Street area; four New Jersey campuses located in Woodland Park (formerly West Paterson), Paramus, Woodbridge, and Newark; and Berkeley College Online. Concentrations are offered in more than 20 career fields, and all campuses are accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. The College’s website address is http://www.berkeleycollege.edu.