A Guide to the workings of a Socially Engaged MFA Program

I wrote this in 2022 for my MFA students, but it might now be of interest to a broader audience interested in alternative approaches to the dominant studio/gallery model of education

Students contemplating the ocean as part of an Art and Social Practice MFA program field trip.

At an earlier point in my life I had the opportunity to devise and direct a university art and social practice MFA program. After almost fifteen years of doing that I wrote out a series of logistical and cultural descriptions about how the program operated to help onboard new students. The program had been created out of an existing studio art MFA program and for that reason was stuck with many structures that couldn’t be replaced and so instead were adapted over the years. In other ways totally new components were imagined and created to augment the conventional system.

I see it now as a very long art project that I worked on, with various ups and downs. I think the existence of the program has helped open up new ways for people to think about the possibilities of art education. I hope this list of topics might be useful for people who are enrolled in, work in, or want to start new MFA programs.