Undergraduate Overview

The Department of Visual and Critical Studies serves students seeking rigorous tools to explore cultural phenomena. The artists, designers, critics, writers, and scholars who teach in the program take a variety of approaches and come from diverse fields. They share a common interest in understanding the cultural and social meanings of visual experience. Visual and Critical Studies course offerings focus on interdisciplinary work and often take a feminist, global and comparative approach.

The Bachelor of Arts in Visual and Critical Studies program (BAVCS) is based on the assumption that BA in Visual and Critical Studies and Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) students have much to learn from one another. Most of the courses that BAVCS students take are part of the regular BFA curriculum, and courses offered through the program are open to all other students. 

The BAVCS requirements include 18 hours of general electives. This gives students the opportunity to take, if they wish, additional VCS courses, or to place emphasis on a particular studio or academic area, for example, photography, philosophy, painting, design, or exhibition studies.  All BAVCS students complete a senior thesis project.

BFA in Studio students may choose a BFA in Studio with Visual and Critical Studies Thesis Option, in which they complete a nine-credit, research-based academic thesis as part of their BFA in Studio degree.