Application and Portfolio Deadlines
For Fall 2025 Semester: February 1, 2025 is the deadline to be guaranteed consideration for admissions. Thereafter, applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until all positions are filled.
Degrees and Concentrations
The School of Art, Design and Art History offers the Master of Fine Arts degree in art with a concentration in studio art and the Master of Arts degree in art with concentrations in art education and studio art.
Mission
The mission for the Master of Fine Arts program is to challenge and support independently motivated artists in their intellectual, philosophical and artistic development. The graduate program encourages life-long learning, career success and community involvement.
Goals and Objectives
- To offer study in collaboration with an exemplary faculty who challenge candidates to develop artistic skills demonstrating a professional competence.
- To advance each candidate’s ability to articulate a personal aesthetic, philosophical and conceptual mode of individual inquiry.
- To equip candidates with a deepened knowledge of artistic history and culture as it relates to their chosen area(s) of artistic pursuit.
- To graduate candidates who have a heightened awareness of contemporary issues and who are prepared to develop an artistic career beyond the university as engaged and productive members of their communities.
Application Requirements
In addition to the requirements of The Graduate School, applicants must meet additional qualifications established by the School of Art, Design and Art History , including: three letters of recommendation, transcripts of undergraduate degree work, an artist’s statement, a statement of intent for pursuing graduate study, and a portfolio of 15 - 20 examples of current artwork with descriptions. Please visit the SADAH website for specific information.
Program Requirements
The Master of Fine Arts degree is considered the professional and terminal degree in studio art. The degree requires a minimum of 60 credit hours. In addition to the general admission requirements, the prospective graduate student in the Master of Fine Arts program must have an undergraduate degree with a minimum of 33 credit hours in studio art and nine credit hours in art history. It is recommended that the art history hours include six hours surveying the history of Western art or the equivalent and three hours in upper-level art history.
The M.F.A. degree is awarded for a high level of professional competence. The M.F.A. in art is designed to provide studio, historical and theoretical studies in art at a level advanced beyond the preliminary professional baccalaureate degree, the B.F.A. in art.
The M.F.A. student at JMU is expected to embrace an interdisciplinary approach to art making resulting in new works of art that rely on both diverse and unconventional methods of studio practice and inquiry. The program promotes visual arts practice as a critical form of research inquiry that is both relevant and necessary within a 21st century context.
The minimum requirement for the Master of Fine Arts degree in art is 60 hours of graduate credit. The 60 credits must include 33 credit hours of studio art, 6 credit hours in art history at the 500-600 level, with three credits in ARTH 572 (or an approved substitute), three credits of art history electives, with non-Western art history recommended, and three credit hours in ART 593 . Thesis credit hours will count as studio art credits.
A Master of Fine Arts candidacy review will be held after 18 credit hours have been completed to determine whether the student’s growth and potential merit continuation in the Master of Fine Arts program. At the end of each semester, graduate faculty will participate in an open graduate review of the student’s work where each student will formally present their work to the graduate faculty, graduate students and any others in attendance for discussion.
During the last two semesters of the program of study, the Master of Fine Arts candidate will enroll in ART 700 . By the end of the final semester, the student must complete a thesis exhibition, a gallery talk, and a thesis monograph clarifying the student’s work, its development, and its cultural and historical references. The monograph must be formatted to suit The Graduate School thesis guidelines and deadlines and must have images of the thesis exhibition inserted. An oral comprehensive examination, generally in conjunction with the exhibition and closely related to the monograph, must also be completed.
Up to 30 hours of graduate credit from James Madison University, or nine hours of graduate credit from other accredited institutions, may be accepted toward the Master of Fine Arts degree if a) the credits were earned within the last six years, b) the student received a minimum grade of “B”, c) the transfer credit is from an institution offering a comparable degree, and d) the student submits this request with the application to The Graduate School and the application is supported by transcripts and portfolio of artwork from the courses taken at other institutions. No more than nine hours of transfer credit will be accepted in the student’s area of concentration.
Return to: