Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art with Specialization in Printmaking

at State University of New York at New Paltz USA

The Speech-Language Disabilities concentration comprises 64 credits and is recommended for students who wish to earn TSSLD certification and do not already have the NYS initial teaching certificate. This concentration leads to New York State teacher certification as a Teacher of Students with Speech and Language Disabilities (TSSLD), New York State licensure, and ASHA certification.

The nationally accredited MFA program offers varied and extensive opportunities for graduate study in a unique setting. Our location is just 90 minutes north of New York City in the historic Hudson River Valley, allowing access to cutting edge artists, historians, critics, and curators. The campus features expansive facilities, private and semi-private secure studios, and extensive computer labs and digital fabrication technologies. Additional exhibition spaces complement the prestigious Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art.

Sculpture - Specialization
The graduate Sculpture program embraces and cultivates the diversity and complexity of what is defined as sculpture today. The program supports investigations that encompass installation, intervention, performance, sound, video, new media as well as more traditional approaches to sculpture. The Sculpture program encourages independent exploration, experimentation, critical awareness, and engagement in the issues, forms, and contexts of contemporary, professional investigation. The program challenges and expands on the individual graduate student’s rationale and modes of working. In a flexible program encompassing the breadth of today’s sculptural possibilities, each student has the opportunity to articulate an individual vision and make a significant contribution to the discipline.

The overall footprint of the sculpture facilities encompasses 10,000 square-feet of space, which is divided into individual studio space for MFA and BFA students, general class workspace, an area for woodworking, welding, and metal fabrication. The facilities also include a separate room for experimental work such as installations. Equipment includes welding and metalworking tools and machinery, woodworking tools and machinery, video and sound equipment, and a computer lab for digital imaging, sound and video production.

Philosophy is the 'love of wisdom.'  It involves a relentless probing of the most profound and difficult questions concerning human beings and their place in the universe.  It is therefore the most comprehensive study.  The Department of Philosophy offers a program designed to acquaint students with the major divisions of philosophy and with the principal historical and contemporary figures and schools.  The study of philosophy is excellent preparation for a variety of vocations and professions, as well as for graduate study in medicine, law, government, business, and journalism.

The Ceramics program cultivates the conceptual, technical, and professional growth of its graduate students by providing an environment balanced among pragmatic skill development, critical and theoretical dialogue, and intensive studio research geared toward a process of making and thinking, resulting in innovative and dynamic outcomes. We encourage students to have a strong sense of responsibility, self-reliance, and confidence. Faculty guide students in independent research and individual approaches to their practice. The curricular structure challenges students to critically evaluate their work within a material-specific and an interdisciplinary framework, as well as in theoretical and professional contexts. Students are encouraged to work with methodologies that explore the boundaries of the field while demonstrating an understanding of historic and contemporary ecologies. With private graduate studios within the program's expansive 10,000 square foot facility and access to a broad range of traditional and contemporary technologies, the program provides students with the resources and the latitude necessary to develop an authentic, significant contribution to the field.

The Department of Mathematics offers undergraduate majors in Mathematics, Adolescence Education Mathematics and Early Childhood & Childhood Education Mathematics. Graduates with the Mathematics major go on to do graduate work in mathematics and other fields requiring strong quantitative and reasoning skills. Those graduating from the Adolescence Education program have a depth of knowledge that underlies the courses they will teach. Early Childhood & Childhood Education majors go on to become mathematics specialists within the primary schools.

This program designed specifically for college graduates holding an appropriate liberal arts degree in Biology, Chemistry, English, Geology, History, or Mathematics who have not had a formal background in education and who wish to prepare for a teaching career in adolescence education grades 7-12.

Upon successful completion of the program, candidates will be recommended to the New York State Education Department for Initial/Professional Certification.

Black Studies is a multi-disciplinary major devoted to the exploration and analysis of the history and culture of African people in the United States, Caribbean, and Africa.  It seeks to define the Black experience from an African and Afro-American centered perspective rather than Euro-centric perspective, to illuminate the contribution of African people to world culture and to correct a traditional approach to the study of world history that tended to bypass the Black Diaspora experience.

The Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program draws on the expertise of faculty based in several departments, enabling students to develop a feminist perspective on traditional disciplines and to cross disciplinary boundaries in order to explore experiences nationally and globally. Students examine the ways that gender intersects with other systems of domination, think critically about ways to challenge violence and injustice, and work together to envision a more just and humane world.

In our practicum course, students gain experience working with organizations that serve or mobilize women. In our senior seminar, they pursue independent research in topics of their own choosing. An interdisciplinary course, Women: Images and Realities, provides the introduction to the program.