Graduate Studies
The SUNY New Paltz graduate Metal Program is directed by Professor Jamie Bennett and Professor Myra Mimlitsch-Gray and includes Arthur Hash as prominent faculty. We believe a graduate program should be a place that inspires and challenges students to combine making and thinking toward dynamic outcomes. We encourage students to have a strong sense of responsibility, self-reliance and confidence. Graduate study is very different from undergraduate work or working independently; graduate students direct their own course of study while they form a vital community of inquiry and action. Graduate students have the intellectual capability and motivation to move the field in new directions; we encourage a depth and breadth of investigations pertaining to the practice.
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. Our hope is 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.
