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Black Hills State Plans More Intensive, Specialized Bachelor of Fine Arts Programs

Black Hills State University logoBlack Hills State University may be ditching its fine arts and humanities requirement for all students, but it is giving the art majors a boost. At its meeting in Spearfish this week, the South Dakota Board of Regents told BHSU it can proceed with its plan to split its plain old art major into specialized programs in studio art, photography, and graphic design. Plus, BHSU will call these degrees Bachelors of Fine Arts instead of Bachelors of Science. Evidently, artists get more respect with BFA than with BS. From the studio arts BFA pitch:

The B.F.A. is the degree offered by peer institutions. Without the B.F.A., students at BHSU will be at a disadvantage when competing against those who have this professional degree. This degree is important to both BHSU art students and faculty retention alike. It becomes significantly more difficult for the BHSU art program to attract and retain high performance students and faculty to meet the research and scholarship mission of BHSU. Undergraduate scholarship and creativity in studio arts can only be accomplished effectively in institutions where the B.F.A. is offered [Black Hills State University, “Intent to Plan for a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art,” 2015.11.20].

Yes, because scholarship and creativity in visual arts evidently have not been accomplished effectively at Black Hills State so far.

The change is not just a marketing label. The big difference is that the BS is a general degree, while the BFA is a professional degree. The University of South Dakota’s BFA program “requires that 60 percent of the degree must be in the art major and 40 percent in general education classes; as opposed to a B.A. or B.S. degree, which only requires 40 percent of art classes.” Art majors will take more art—mostly a studio component, 15 core hours and 30 hours of specialization in preferred media—and fewer non-art electives.

The BFA is good for aspiring professional artists, but it appears to crowd out opportunity for students to double major in art and another field of interest. The BFA is another example of the work world narrowing the universe of liberal scholarship to which universities are supposed to expose young scholars.

12 Comments

  1. crossgrain 2015-12-04 11:47

    Heh. It’s been my experience that there’s something of a schism between B.S. degree-holders and B.F.A.(and M.F.A.) degree-holders in the visual arts. BFAs look down their nose at the BS/As as not having the talent required for “true artists”, while in the opposite direction, BS/As look down their nose at BFAs for not having the experience required to actually feed themselves off their talent.

    That said, I don’t really think it matters in the long run too much. Artists tend to make their own way and really don’t depend too much on the edugovindustrial complex to provide for themselves – http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304402104579149060054918936

    Full Disclosure: I have a B.S. in Visual Art from South Dakota State University, and I am self-employed in the arts since 1992.

  2. leslie 2015-12-04 12:34

    hahaha-state money for the arts keeps going to the same artists year after year.

  3. Porter Lansing 2015-12-04 14:56

    My little town’s current project is creating a metal monument from gathered iron farm objects (spurs, gears, horse bridals etc.) that depict the town’s agricultural past. How about that, Governor? Artists that weld.

  4. crossgrain 2015-12-04 16:34

    Haha! And now for the icing on the cake, today I received a card from the GOED wishing me a “Happy Holidays” (What, no “Merry Christmas”?). They thanked me and wished me a prosperous 2016. So yes! Apparently artists are actually able to contribute to the economy and provide our neighbors with livable wages according to the Gov.

    :-)

  5. Bill Fleming 2015-12-04 16:42

    Cool Crossgrain. Where can we see your work?

  6. crossgrain 2015-12-04 16:58

    Bill, I’m an artist of a different sort – we do screen printing and embroidery. Sort of the red-headed stepchild of the printing world, but we’ve got 10 full and part-time employees.

    I’d just as soon remain anonymous for purposes of affecting my business – I count among my customers governmental offices and officials from both sides of the aisle, and I think my opinions and baloney could cause some folks pause, since I use this ‘handle’ on several sites besides this one. Cory knows who I am, though if that’s worth anything?

    If YOU really want to know, just drop me an email: crossgrain at gmail dot com

  7. Bill Fleming 2015-12-04 17:26

    Understood. Will do. Thanks, crossgrain.

  8. grudznick 2015-12-04 18:00

    You know, Mr. PP is sort of an artist too. In fact, doesn’t he do screen printing and embroidery? One would think he would be opposed to Governor Daugaard’s alleged anti-art agenda.

  9. caheidelberger Post author | 2015-12-05 09:29

    Cross, I’d like to see that card as evidence of GOED’s War on Christmas.

    I’d also like to hear you artists’ assessment of the importance of that extra studio requirement in the BFA. Will freeing art students of other elective course requirements and requiring them to put in those studio credit hours make them better artists? Does it mean they will create larger, more saleable portfolios?

  10. Mike McGirr 2015-12-05 18:38

    For reasons I still don’t quite understand 44 years later, I obtained a BA in Fine Art from South Dakota State. Because of changes in the course catalog after my first two years, requiring additional hours for the major, I had to take every course the department offered plus a film class in the speech department and a couple of summer classes in Arizona to qualify. The art department, a spinoff from the College of Home Economics, had a somewhat peculiar profile of faculty and course offerings. However, SDSU now offers the BFA in several specialties. I trust they have sufficiently beefed up the department to support the professional degree. A new Visual Arts and Design Building is planned, to house the new professional School of Design. (http://state.sdstateconnect.org/inside-the-walls/) I’ve always wondered: is it healthy competition that has led to the development of so many state “universities” with duplicate or overlapping degree programs, or a waste of resources? I guess a couple of the campuses no longer offer four-year degrees, but there is some sort of additional campus in Sioux Falls (which would seem reasonable). Multiple teachers colleges and one-room country schools (I went to one!), made sense in the days of horse-and-buggy travel, but why duplicate administrations and programs around the state these days? It seems, due to lobbying from campus admins, locals and alumni, a lot of the money spent on higher education in South Dakota is actually spent to support bragging rights and economies of certain small towns, not the needs of students.

  11. caheidelberger Post author | 2015-12-08 12:13

    Mike, thanks for that perspective!

    Permit me to follow you and fly off on a tangent on campus consolidation. I can understand the fiscal case we could make for streamlining the Regental system. Having grown up in Madison, having worked in Spearfish, and now living in sparkling Aberdeen (holy cow—how did that happen?), I also understand the lobbying that makes campus consolidation a third rail.

    Coincidentally, I was talking with an Aberdeen neighbor last night. This neighbor is a pretty hard-core conservative, the kind of person whose politics I would think would align perfectly with consolidating campuses for efficiencies. I said something about Black Hills legislators, and this neighbor said that Black Hills legislators are all RINOs. Somewhat taken aback, I mentioned Gordon Howie. This neighbor said he met Gordon Howie and told him that he would never vote for Howie unless Howie vowed not to close Northern State University. This neighbor swore that whenever someone mentions campus consolidation, someone from the Black Hills proposes closing NSU. This neighbor says NSU is vital to the community because it provides all those great sporting events.

    Obviously, the discussion of campus efficiency transcends party affiliation.

  12. Mike McGirr 2015-12-08 14:15

    The same was (is?) true on the secondary level. There was a big push for consolidation of rural districts in SD when I was in high school in the ’60s. Would have been the perfect time to close the high school in my hometown (population at the time 250 plus farm families). High school had about 85 students (18 in my class), building was old, cold, and falling apart, couldn’t recruit or pay qualified teachers for the few classes they were required to offer to stay certified, population and enrollment dropping as young families had fewer children and left, most graduates unprepared for college or career. But noooooo…they bonded themselves into unsustainable debt to build a new school, kept the high school open until there were about 30 students and the state or banks were going to shut them down, and finally gave up when they couldn’t field sports teams. I understand the school was the lifeblood of the town, but they sacrificed their children on that altar.

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