Graduate Studies
The SUNY New Paltz Graduate Metal program is directed by Professor Jamie Bennett and Professor Myra Mimlitsch-Gray. Adjuncts and graduate assistants supplement the program. Graduate students meet in studio and seminar classes with Bennett and Mimlitsch-Gray each semester. There are generally twelve graduates in the Metal program. The students represent a broad international range of backgrounds and interests. We additionally have exchange students, most recently from Finland, Australia, and Sweden and Colombia. We also have a very active visiting artist program. Recent visiting artists include Giampaolo Babetto, Sharon Church, Bettina Dittlmann, Lisa Gralnick, Gary Griffin, Hoss Haley, Daniel Kruger, Keith Lewis, Lisa Norton, Barbara Seidenath, Sondra Sherman and writers Dave Hickey and David Levi Strauss.
It is our objective to encourage students to have a strong sense of self-reliance and confidence. We see the community of Metal as part of the larger community of the arts. On campus our students are actively committed to involvement in the Student Art Alliance, an organization that supports visiting artist lectures, student travel and other creative project proposals from the various Programs within the Department. The SAA creates greater opportunity for interdisciplinary exchange.
We believe a graduate program should be a place that inspires students, and challenges them to combine making and thinking. Graduate study is very different from undergraduate work or working independently, in that it places more responsibility on students to direct their own course of action. At the same time the students form a vital community of inquiry and action, with the intellectual capability and motivation to move the field in new directions.
As faculty, we provide the "tools", encouragement and guidance. We work very closely with our graduates, meeting regularly each week. Each semester one member of the faculty teaches a formal seminar while the others meet with the students to discuss their studio work and practice. We then reverse the responsibilities the next semester. We also team-teach and conduct joint critiques on a regular basis. It is our hope that this environment fosters in students the passion for making, regard for skill, knowledge of the history of this discipline, and the significance of their actions as metalsmiths and jewelers.
The MFA degree is a two-year course of study, which requires the student to complete a total of sixty credit hours, with a studio concentration of 48 credits in the Metal program. Additional curriculum requirements include, 12 credits of Liberal Arts/ Art History/Theory, of which 3 credits are in Graduate Seminar and 3 credits in Critical Dialogues. A portion of studio credit may be taken in Selected Topics, as well as specific progamatic offerings such as Internship to College Teaching. Your advisor will council you as to your options and opportunities. Additionally, the three-credit class, Internship to College Art Teaching, determines eligibility for consideration of a teaching assistantship, and is generally taken in the first year of study. The capstone experience for MFA students is an exhibition of thesis work in the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art on campus. An MA degree is also available. For more detailed information regarding applications, course offerings and other degree requirements, contact the Graduate Office at (845) 257-3285 .
We strongly recommend that you arrange a visit to New Paltz for an interview. We generally conduct interviews by appointment on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, during the academic year. We have always found this extremely beneficial for the student and for ourselves. Seeing the school and meeting faculty and students will always give you the better sense of the program than what you may learn from other's observations and views. It is worth the effort.
Graduate applications received by February 15th will be given first consideration. Visits should occur before March 1. Please contact us at bennettj@newpaltz.edu, and mimlitsm@newpaltz.edu, or by phone at (845) 257-3836, to schedule an appointment.
