Since its founding, the Academy has been a center of innovative work in architecture, art and design with an educational approach built on a mentorship model. The Academy is made up of 10 leading programs of graduate study surrounded by the resources and facilities to support them. These 10 departments are 2D Design, 3D Design, Architecture, Ceramics, Fiber, Metalsmithing, Painting, Print Media, Photography and Sculpture. Each department is led by a full time Artist or Designer-in-Residence who is the sole faculty member and head of the department. Each department has an enrollment of approximately 15 students, who are selected by the Artist-in-Residence.
The 10 departments shape the rhythms of the Academy. In many ways, each department is its own unit, with an individualized calendar of activities, roster of guest artists and critics, travel opportunities, departmental reading and discussion groups and other special projects. Students are full-time active members of their departments, contributing and developing the program and dialog from within.
Departments are not only centers of creative production, they are 10 unique social centers. Within each department, students are given personal studio space and access to shared departmental facilities. Each department also has a central kitchen, a critique area and social spaces so that departments become both a place of focused individual work and collaborative community.
Each of our 10 departments has a character and approach that is its own – influenced by both the Artist-in-Residence and the current group of graduate students. While our departments are invested in a disciplinary dialog guided by a departmental philosophy, our departments are also collaborative across the Academy and far beyond – engaging in the intersections of contemporary architecture, art and design nationally and internationally.