MFA in Photography

I am thinking of getting an MFA in photography and eventually would like to teach on a college level. Does

anyone have suggestions on graduate programs in photography? I would like to stay around the Midwest (USA) but

am open to any info I can get.

Rather than tell you about "good" programs, here is a list of things you should consider.

 

You can do a google search on all the schools in the region that offer the degree. Or, even better, go to the library and look a the Chronicle of Higher Education. This will allow you to find all the possible choices. Sometimes small programs will fall through the cracks because there aren't as many people who go to that school.

 

I wouldn't place a lot of value in someone's suggestion. I got my MFA from U of Minn. and felt that it was an ideal match. I got more out of it than I expected. But I am not necessarily recommending it to you, because when I was looking at grad programs I asked for people's suggestions, I heard positive and negative things about all the programs. (I am not exaggerating-EVERY SINGLE SCHOOL).

 

What I learned was that MFA programs are personal. Only you can determine if the school meets your needs. I found this out be visiting all of the schools that I was interested in. I visited the schools unannounced and looked at the artwork on the walls, talked to the undergrad and grad students to get a feel about the teaching styles of the instructors. I went unannounced because I wanted as unfiltered opinion as possible.

 

Then I went to the Grad School office and asked to sit in a grad class. (Especially a critique session if possible) The best learning experiences I had were the critiques-less structured, more about the teaching and photography philosophy of the instructor)

 

Be careful about the school's general reputation. (I heard that the University of ... is great). That means nothing. One of the "great" schools I visited was just that-fantastic, but it didn't address the type of photography I was interested in doing, while another one was horrible-instructors were rarely present in the classroom. The list of instructors looked great, but the star professors only taught 1 class in 1 quarter for the whole year. The rest of the time his classes were taught by TA's. It is one thing for undergrad, but grad students should always have access to the professors.

 

Look at grant, fellowship, scholarship opportunities. What are the TA positions like? Are any guaranteed? Are any teaching or just assisting? -especially since you want to teach. Do they offer any classes or workshops on teaching methodolgy? Many grad students are great at their medium, but don't know how to teach. What is the art scene in town? A more active art scene means more opportunity to see and talk art. How well students in the school are received in the galleries in town? Some towns seemed to resent or look down upon the students while others loved the diversity.

 

Make sure they have the facilities that are even possibly interesting to you. But even that can be a problem, because I went into grad school with a set of interests but by the time I graduated, my eyes were opened up to a whole range of possibilities that I had not even considered before. I think a good grad school will do that.

 

What are their classes like? Are they catalog classes or mostly independent study? Your learning/working style would determine which one would be better for you.

 

Do they have a good guest artist/speaker program? The more viewpoints and artists you can hear/see the better.

 

What are the opportunities outside of photography? I also did bookart and printmaking as supplements to my photography. Since I am interested in the narrative in photography, it was a great match. The program also required classes outside of the art department. I got a minor in Museum studies-partly because it was insurance since teaching jobs can be difficult to find. and also because it allowed me to see how art museums work. I got to talk to and work with curators and registrars.

 

Hope some of these ideas will help you.

 

Good luck, have fun and EXPLORE

Check out my recent post.

One thing that I hope you will think about is the prospects one has when getting through the program. Teaching in a college setting seems like a great idea, but like a lot of great ideas, a lot of people have thought of it and the market is glutted with applicants while the available jobs are still pretty limited. Of the jobs available, the majority in all fields in higher education these days are part time. While the pay and benefits have been improving in some areas (like where I am in Washington State) the improvement is the result of successful class action lawsuits. Pay is low; it can be as bad as half what a full timer makes for teaching twice as much, but the upside is that you are spared those insufferable committee assignments, etc. Tenure, in these "adjunct" positions, is out of the question, and employment proceeds on a term to term contract at the sole pleasure of the employer. If your classes don't fill, you have no job. If somebody else's classes don't fill and they are tenured and can possibly qualify to teach photo, they will get the class and you are on the street. This is a crisis in the academic world right now, and if you don't know about it, it would serve you well to do a bit of research. John's advice to check the Chronicle of Higher Education applies here, too. It is rare that you will find an issue of that paper that doesn't address this issue in the field.

 

Another thing that I think important is that in becoming a teacher, you really become a teacher, and most of us who are teaching don't have a lot of time and energy to do art. Teaching is a very demanding profession and, as greater centralization happens (it is) the requirements are becoming more stringent, taking more of the teacher's time doing stuff that seems to many of us to be counter-educational. This is very frustrating for myself and for all of my colleagues where I work, even the full timers. How do we deal with it? We teach. If you are a responsible teacher, you WILL teach. I teach, and long ago realized that to do so was my primary profession, and that as a photographer, I'm an amateur and aspiration toward other goals really isn't very realistic except on a fairly limited scale. That suits me fine, but you need to decide that for yourself. Of course there are those who get around this by not teaching, but that is not an option for me. I joke about my "not teaching" because to teach by "not teaching" is my own style, and it works well for me. It doesn't mean that I'm not there, and it doesn't mean I give the students less than the 100% which is their right to expect.

 

It is entirely possible to go through an MFA program and benefit from it, without the expectation of a job when you get out. In general, my observations suggest that those who try to work in or around photography upon the assumption that it would be great to do for a living what they most love to do, are less happy than those who do something else for money and do photography for themselves. This applies to commercial, editorial, pj, etc. too. How do I know this? I've done all of the above.

 

I don't especially want to be discouraging, but I would like to see you go into this, if you do, with your eyes wide open. The way I see it is that if, after hearing all the negatives, a person still wants to do it, they probably ought to be doing it. Those who can be deflected are probably better off changing their plans. If you do your research, get your "ducks in a row" and go for it, you might succeed, but please don't think it's going to come to you by itself. It won't.

I also forgot to mention, another source of information is the Society for Photographic Education. The SPE Midwest region has their conference in Cleveland, OH, November 6-8. You can meet a lot of representatives of the different schools there. There will also be presentations by faculty and students.

 

www.midwestspe.org/

 

 

John

The SPE events are usually a lot of fun, lots of good people. There will be many who will be very forthcoming

and will answer your questions. Also, there are presentations, and it could be you would find somebody you'd hit

it off well with and that could help you find your way into a program. I am sure you would qualify for the

student membership rate, too. As I recall, the national meeting is held in the spring. There, you would meet

people from all over the country. That's where candidates go to network (ie, to meet college employers).

Another major venue for hiring is the College Art Association's annual meeting; not that you are in a position to

look for a job, but any experience you can have that will give you an exposure to the marketplace will be useful

to you in planning your strategy.

 

About the Chronicle of Higher Education: it is expensive to subscribe but current issues are probably available

in every college library in the country. In it, there are ads for job openings, which you can use to see what

colleges are looking for. This changes as the field changes, of course.

 

Despite the legal requirements that are in place to prevent various sorts of discrimination, the reality is that

if you are young, you would have a distinct advantage. They just don't talk about it in the committees which

keeps them legal, but the fact is that nobody wants to hire someone that they will have to retire soon. I

mention this because I don't know your age, and I also know that a lot of older people are going back to school

to change careers. I myself went back to insert an F between my previously acquired M and A. Read Barbara

Ehrenreich's books; she's done a great deal of guerrilla research and can give you a good picture of what the

realities in the job markets are, in spite of what we are supposed to believe.

 

Best of luck.

 

Larry

About the Chronicle of Higher Education: The jobs are posted on line here: http://chronicle.com/jobs/

 

Will

<p>It's not media specific, but Transart Institute offers an international low-residency MFA program for working artists in a highly individualized format. The program consists of three intensive summer residencies with lectures, workshops, critiques, seminars, performances and exhibitions in Europe and two shorter winter residencies in New York. In the four semesters between residencies, students create their own course of study realizing individual art and research projects with the support of faculty and self-chosen artist mentors wherever they work and live. The program is geared towards the development of a sustainable artistic praxis rather than training in certain media or genres, challenging students to think conceptually and work creatively in new ways. Check out our Open House in New York on Feb. 28. Best of luck, Klaus Knoll</p>

<p>Thank you, Klaus. <br>

Thinking of my experience, it almost seems that a good low residency program might have been better than the second of my graduate experiences because I had many years of work in (various) media, lots of show experience, publication, and critical attention. Also, at least twenty years of teaching behind me. More importantly, I work on my own and generally have little need for constant re-enforcement and support from others except for friends and colleagues that I myself choose, some of which are sort of adversarial. Not everyone has this particular profile. And not everyone would need it to benefit from such a program. I think that I would have been right at home.<br>

The point is that different programs are best for different folks. My wife did an LR program in poetry through Antioch LA. She got certain REAL benefits from it: a solid core group of friends, a few really fine instructors who not only saw her through the program but have been a resource for her since. She did NOT get a few other benefits. She could have used a constant community and its input. She came from a 30 year career in psychotherapy. I was different. I came from a 30 year career as a photographer, both in fine art and magazine free lance, and also had experience in lots of other media. <br>

I don't think it would be useful to generalize as to the fit for one person or another. This sort of thing is definitely an individual matter. It takes some very serious thought.<br>

Klaus, I wish you the best with your program... It sounds just great. I regret it wasn't around twenty years ago when I could have used it!</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Thanks for your input and your kind words, Larry. Your observations concur with mine: low-residency programs are mostly for mature students, practitioners that don't primarily need to acquire skills. The average age in our program is somewhere near 40 now. As for community, Transart Institute is the first program I know of where you are invited to come back to the residencies after you graduate so you can get a creative surge, get feedback on your work and re-connect to current thinking and conversations in your field. In a busy professional live it's not easy to do that on your own. </p>