Proposed New Degree Plans

We are excited to announce a proposed new vison for Visual Arts at Queen's University. We've re-imagined our well known BFA, while developing new Bachelor of Arts Honours (BAH), and Minor in Visual Arts degrees. These nested and mutually supporting programs provide versatility and flexibility for our students. By partnering with other creative arts departments, these proposed plans offer an exciting suite of courses, in alignment with Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Indigenization (EDII) metrics, ensuring that all students feel empowered to question, learn and explore in a supportive studio environment.

Whether deeply passionate or simply curious, students can engage in depth and/or breadth in visual arts. Students will be able to choose new Visual Arts programs as a Specialization, Major, or Minor. Our Specialization (BFA) offers the most intensive visual arts plan, with a suite of courses ranging from drawing, painting, printmaking, and sculpture to cutting-edge research, curatorial, digital and time-based media practices, culminating in a fourth-year capstone course leading to an annual public exhibition. Additionally, a five-year concurrent BFA/BEd or BAH/BEd is available. Offering varying levels of focus in a broad array of visual arts, these programs empower students to integrate their interests with other disciplines across the Faculty of Arts and Science (including, but not limited to, Art History, Drama, Film and Media, and Music).

Students will immerse themselves in a rich learning environment supported by faculty who are leading artists in their fields, and access to internationally recognized art collections and programming at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, the Isabel Bader Centre for Performing Arts, and the Union Gallery, providing a broad range of opportunities, including internships, work-study, gallery and museums roles, and curatorial and exhibition opportunities.

The curriculum is enriched by the Koerner Artist-in-Residence program, which provides a two-week mentorship with internationally acclaimed artists. Visual Arts field trips include a four-day excursion to New York City and the Venice Summer School (ARTH 380) at the Venice Biennale.

This innovative re-imagination of Visual Arts at Queen's equips students with knowledge, experiences, and networks needed to excel in studio-based practices, visual arts education accreditation, professional careers as cultural leaders, or arts appreciation more broadly.

Expand the boxes below to explore the proposed degree plans. We are collecting feedback through May. Feel free to use the email tool to leave comments, or email artsci.nelson@queensu.ca.

Overview

The Visual Arts Advisory Committee comprises members with curriculum and disciplinary expertise, and representation from students and the Union Gallery. The members are:

Associate Dean Teaching & Learning (Chair)
Art History & Art Conservation Head
Art History & Art Conservation Undergraduate Chair
BFA (Visual Art) Undergraduate Chair
Faculty member from the BFA (Visual Art) program
Faculty member from the Department of Film and Media
Faculty member from the DAN School of Drama and Music
Student representative enrolled in the current BFA (Visual Art) program
Student representative nominated by ASUS
Curriculum development support ex-officio
Representative from the Union Gallery or the Agnes ex-officio

The committee has met regularly over the past year, working on the development of three new degree plans:

The Specialization: This plan is the 'BFA' and is intended for students who are looking for the greatest immersion into visual arts and the most amount of studio time.
The Major: This plan is a Bachelor's of Arts Honours in visual arts and is intended for students who are looking to major in Visual Arts, but want enough room in their timetable to do minors or even a second major. Students in Concurrent Education are likely to be interested in this degree plan.
The Minor: This degree plan is intended for students who are registered in a degree plan offered by a different department but are interested in visual arts.

The advisory committee had the task of creating an exciting and high-quality program in visual arts that is sustainable with existing resources, addresses the challenges of the old degree, and is something that could be expanded on in the future. It necessarily meant a redesign of how the program integrated with the Department of Art History, the DAN School of Drama and Music, and the Department of Film & Media. It also meant careful consideration of how studio resources were used in courses at each year level. The plans anticipate large first year courses where visual art is done outside of studio spaces, mid-sized second year courses where students use shared studio spaces, and small upper-year courses where students use dedicated studio space.

Degree Plan Architecture

View the proposed degree plans.

The draft degree plans use two key design strategies that may be unfamiliar to some, so it's worthwhile taking a few moments to discuss those. The first strategy is that the degree plans are nested within each other, which means that the Major, and Minor are a subset of the Specialization. This strategy allows for efficient use of teaching resources by combining students from different degrees into the same courses. This structure also allows students to more easily change degree plans as their career or learning goals evolve. For example, if they decide they would like more Visual Arts in their degree they could move from a Minor to a Major or even seek acceptance into the BFA plan. Since the plans are most similar in the first and second year, this strategy allows for small class sizes in the upper year while still providing good access to visual arts for all FAS students.

The second strategy is to build the curriculum around what are called Special Topics Courses. Special topics courses are slightly different from a typical course in that they have a general theme, but the topic can change each time the course is run. For example, the proposed course ARTV 201 has a general title Special topics in drawing or paint and multiple special topics, such as "Figurative drawing" and "Mixed media". This strategy best allows for flexibility in programming. The topics courses can be customized to address emerging trends while also aligning to faculty expertise and student interest. The special topics areas are delineated to ensure that drawing/painting and sculpture/printmaking remain in the curriculum.