Program Objectives
The MFA Program seeks to graduate artists who:
- Contribute to the contemporary art world through the execution of quality art.
- Play a central role by serving as qualified art educators.
- Move from thinking as a student to functioning as a working artist.
The MFA program of study at APU aligns with the university's four cornerstones and applies a rigorous intellectual climate to students accepted to the program. The program allows individuals to be at different points along their spiritual and artistic journey, while adhering to the program's core perspectives, which are Christian, academic, developmental, and service.
This degree helps graduate art students integrate the essential elements of the Christian faith into their lives, while developing a community in Christ among faculty and students.
The MFA student studies contemporary and historical art as well as the context that created it (culture, religion, politics, ethnicity, etc.). Intellectual curiosity is cultivated with a flexible and critical open-mindedness and students are challenged to deal with the complexity and ambiguity of the world, and communicate truth effectively as they come to understand it.
Core classes of the MFA create a small-group ethos that lends itself to the encouragement of a creative Christian lifestyle in the students. The interactive quality of a cohort that meets together for four semesters of study over a three-year period lends itself to healthy confrontation, struggle, risk, and the need to take responsibility for one's personal behavior, decisions, and continuing growth.
