IU art program similar to national schools

The Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts is only a small part of Indiana University.

Sam Kampelman, who just completed his master of fine arts in painting from IU, attended Maryland Institute College of Art for his undergraduate studies.

Kampelman taught two undergraduate courses at IU while completing his MFA. At the Maryland Institute, undergraduate studies placed heavy importance on studio arts, Kampelman said. Students were required to take a variety of studio and literature courses and only one course in math or science.

“If you went to college specifically for art, you’re expected to make it your life,” Kampelman said.

At IU, fine arts courses are often viewed more as elective courses, he said.

Kampelman also noticed that his undergraduate students had heavy course loads in other liberal arts classes besides studio courses.

“Less importance was placed on the fine arts school,” Kampelman said. “Students had more obligations in other classes. It might be harder to push your work where you
want it to be because of all these other obligations.”

However, Kampelman did acknowledge that where a student attains their
undergraduate degree and education is not as important as where they complete their MFA work.

Kaitlan Cole, a junior pursuing a bachelor of arts in studio art with a concentration in textiles, transferred from School of the Art Institute of Chicago to Bloomington’s Ivy Tech Community College and finally to IU this spring.

Cole found that the foundations courses for a fine arts degree are similar at any school with a fine arts program. IU and the Chicago Art Institute have comparable textile facilities, Cole noted, and textile introduction courses offered at each school are similar.

The undergraduate program at the Chicago Art Institute was not very structured, Cole said.

Classes were graded on a pass/fail scale for every assignment, and students were expected to be very independent and self-motivated. The undergraduate program at IU is more structured, building up a student’s motivation and setting specific guidelines for each degree program.

The IU BFA program requires 62 credit hours and 12 hours of art history, while the BA program requires 33 hours in studio art and 12 hours of art history.

The BFA program also requires that students start their work in the BA program and then apply for the BFA, said Sue Miller, academic advisor for the School of Fine Arts.

“Students begin their work in the BA, then apply for the BFA in their area of concentration once they have built a suitable portfolio,” Miller said.

Cole said any student who creates a solid portfolio and gains the technical skills in his or her foundation courses should be able to thrive in a masters program after
graduation.

“I don’t think a (bachelor of arts) degree from an art school puts you that much far ahead of a student graduating from a school with an art program,” Cole said. “The education for an undergraduate is not that much different, whether it’s from an art school or a school that has an art program."