Guidelines & Requirements for ART 402 BFA Thesis Project : Department of Art : UMass Amherst

Overview

ART 402 BFA Degree Project (aka BFA Thesis Project) is an optional 6-credit independent project that BFA Art & Design majors may choose to pursue in their final year.

The BFA Thesis Project consists of:

A body of work or major individual project
A written component including an artist statement (150 words) and annotated bibliography (750 words)
An exhibition or other appropriate public presentation, such as a screening or performance
An oral examination

The project is conducted with the guidance of a committee of faculty.

Important Notes:

BFA Thesis Projects must be proposed and approved in the semester before they occur.
Eligibility is limited to BFA Art & Design students with a GPA of 3.0 or above in courses counting toward the major.
Students who choose not to conduct a thesis project will instead complete 6-credits of studio and seminar electives, 200-level or above.
All BFA Thesis Guidelines, Proposal Template, Title Page, and Meeting Schedules, are available on the Department of Art Website.

ART 401 Professional Practices

3 credits, required of all BFA Art & Design candidates (excluding Art Education majors)

This course fulfills the Integrative Experience (IE) requirement for all BFA Art & Design majors. The BFA in Art Education has separate requirements.

Regardless of your choice to pursue a thesis project, all BFA Art & Design students must take ART 401 Professional Practices. ART 401 will cover topics such as creating portfolios and reels, writing applications and proposals for grants and residencies, researching exhibition and festival opportunities, writing artist statements, etc. ART 401 may also include a student-led group show or presentation of work by enrolled students.

For students who are doing a thesis project, this means you will participate in the group show as part of ART 401 and your own thesis presentation. To avoid conflicts, the ART 401 group shows will be scheduled so they do not overlap with thesis presentations. Thesis students should note that ART 401 and ART 402 need not be taken at the same time, and should consider taking ART 401 in the semester before their thesis projects.

ART 401 will not cover material or devote time directly related to individual thesis projects. Thesis projects are directed by thesis committees.

ART 402 BFA Thesis Project

6 credits, optional for BFA Art & Design candidates

The BFA Thesis Project is intended for students who want to develop an independent body of work, alongside in-depth research. The Thesis Project represents the culmination of four years of study, and six credits of sustained, semester-long inquiry outside the structure of a course. The Written Component of the Thesis Project includes an Artist Statement (150 words) and Annotated Bibliography (750 words) that examines your work, its sources, context, and methods. The exhibition (or other public presentation) must demonstrate a deep engagement with your chosen media and concepts, and must present them coherently and professionally. Thesis Projects mark a transition from student to working artist, and from academic assignments to individual, self-guided artistic research.

Important Note: Eligibility is limited to BFA Art & Design students with a GPA of 3.0 or above in courses counting toward the major.

The Proposal

Your BFA Thesis Project Proposal must be submitted well in advance: the semester before you intend to do your Thesis Project, by the end of the fourth week of the semester. You are encouraged to meet with a faculty mentor in your discipline to help develop your proposal. On the department website, please find the Microsoft Word document called BFA Thesis Proposal Template; download this file, edit it by adding your proposal information, and save it as a PDF. Further instructions on how to submit are included at the top of the template document.

The proposal should include:

Your name, BFA discipline, and expected graduation semester
A ranked list of three full-time art department faculty to serve on your committee. Every effort will be made to honor student preferences, while balancing the workload evenly amongst faculty.
A 300-500 word project proposal that includes:
- Questions/topics you intend to explore
- The significance of this project to you and your reasons for pursuing it
- A selection of artists, critics or scholars that relate to your project, with a brief description of their relevance
- A description of your intended media and working processes
- The format in which you expect to present your completed project (e.g. gallery exhibition, performance, screening, etc.);
3 to 5 artwork sample images
A 5-page writing sample from an academic class (e.g. term paper or research paper)

Tip: Do not conceive of the proposal as an exact description of the finished work you will make. The thesis project is an opportunity to explore and develop ideas over the course of a full semester, and it is expected that projects will evolve and grow as you make discoveries in the studio. Think of the proposal as a starting point, or as preparation for a journey into unknown territory. Which direction do you plan to go? What tools and ideas are you bringing with you?

Review Process:

Proposals will be reviewed by department faculty to ensure that they are well-developed and to distribute committee assignments. Proposals that do not meet the standards described above may be returned to students for revision if time permits at the discretion of the Undergraduate Program Director (UPD).

You will be notified of your approved projects before registration for the following semester, and you will be granted permission in SPIRE to register for ART 402. You will also be notified regarding the faculty who will serve on your committee. Students whose proposals are not approved will not be granted permission to register for 402 and instead will take 6 credits of studio electives (200-level or above) to complete their degree.

The Thesis Committee

BFA Thesis committees consist of two full-time Art Department faculty, one of whom is designated as the Committee Chair. Committee assignments are made by the faculty, based on preferences listed in your Proposal. You may choose to add an additional third committee member of any full-time Five College faculty; it is your responsibility to seek such faculty member’s approval to serve as a third member.

The role of the committee is to support the development of new work through individual studio visits, offering advice and resources relating to your project, and helping you to move toward a cohesive presentation. The chair of the committee will work most closely with you on your project and written component. Your committee chair will also establish a set of deadlines for successive drafts of the paper throughout the semester.

Meeting with Your Committee:

It is your responsibility to arrange for the requisite number of meetings with all members. You are expected to meet with your Committee Chair 7-10 times over the semester, and with your other committee members 5-6 times. Individual faculty members may require more hours and meeting times at their discretion. Download the Meeting Schedule on the department website for your committee members to sign and date each time you meet with them. This is required and must be submitted at the end of the project.

The Thesis Writing

The Written Component of the BFA Thesis should be approximately 1000 words, and must include the following:

Title Page - download template from department website, including:
- Your First and Last Name
- BFA Art & Design Concentration (if applicable)
- Names of Committee Members, UPD, and Department Chair, listed with spaces for the requisite signatures
Thesis Writing, including:
- Artist Statement (150 words)
  - Articulate the key ideas, issues, struggles, goals within your work or studio practice
    - Focus of work (goal, purpose, intention, exploration)
    - Content of work (themes, ideas, subject matter).
  - Describe your process and what the work looks/sounds/feels like, etc
    - Form of work (materials, processes, tradition of work –e.g. abstract, figurative, etc.)
  - Discuss who or what inspires your work or studio practice
    - Influences (cultural, historical, theoretical, art historical, personal, material, biographical)
- Annotated Bibliography (3-5 sources, 750 words max)
  - Conduct a Literature Review of research scholarship informing your thesis project
  - Summarize the source’s main argument, theme, or contribution in your own words.
  - Explain relevance by connecting how it informs, inspires, or contrasts with your thesis project.
  - Reflect briefly on its impact, for example: ideas, methods, or perspectives you are taking from it into your own work.

Important Info:

Each source entry should include full citation details in a consistent style (MLA, APA, Chicago) followed by the short annotation.
Include reference to at least one book and one academic, peer-reviewed article in addition to web-based articles, self-published writings, blogs, and media (video, podcasts, interactive resources).
The Artist Statement and Annotated Bibliography should be made available to your committee members one week before the date of your oral examination.

Tip: Think of the Thesis Writing as an accompaniment to the artwork. The Artist Statement and Annotated Bibliography should help your reader better understand the work – its ideas, motivations, artistic contexts, and methods. If it doesn’t illuminate the work, it probably doesn’t belong in the paper.

The Public Presentation of Your Project

Your project must be presented to the public in a manner appropriate to the work. It is your responsibility to make a plan for the content and format of your exhibition/presentation, and to review this plan with your committee in advance.

Time is reserved in Herter Art Gallery for BFA Thesis Exhibitions toward the end of each semester. Distribution of exhibition slots in Herter Gallery will be overseen by the Undergraduate Program Director (UPD) and the Herter Gallery Director.

Alternative Venues and Presentation Formats:

There are other galleries and venues on campus where you may decide to mount an exhibition. These include: Student Union Gallery, Augusta Savage Gallery, and Hampden Gallery.

If you do not intend to have your show in Herter Gallery, inform the UPD and Gallery Director as soon as possible of this intent. It is your responsibility to make necessary arrangements with an alternative space.

Exhibition is only one format of public presentation. Students may also stage a public screening of time-based work, schedule a live performance, or organize a public program in the co-creation or activation of the final thesis work, just to name a few other examples. Discuss the best presentation format for your project with your faculty committee and notify the UPD of any alternative plans.

The Oral Examination

The Oral Examination is a conversation between you and your committee members (approximately 45 minutes in length) during which you will be asked to "defend" your Thesis Project and Thesis Writing by addressing its central ideas and sources. There should be a clear correspondence between the work and your words.

How to Prepare:

Print out two-three copies of your Thesis Writing, including the Artist Statement and Annotated Bibliography, and bring them with you to the Oral Examination.

It is your responsibility to schedule the Oral Examination so that all committee members can be present. If you are mounting an exhibition, the exam should take place on site during the exhibition.

After the Oral Exam:

Immediately following the oral examination, the committee will confer in private to determine if you have passed, and will communicate their decision to you.

If the Thesis Project artwork and Thesis Writing are approved in terms of form and content, the Undergraduate Program Director (UPD) will obtain approval signatures from all your committee members on your Title Page by the conclusion of the thesis semester.

In some cases the committee may decide that there is additional work to be done, and establish a deadline for any additional changes. The second member of your committee may defer to the chair to oversee these changes. The committee chair and member will then sign the Title Page when the agreed upon changes are made.

The process is only complete with signed-approval from the Undergraduate Program Director (UPD) and Department Chair.

What to Submit, Where, and When

At the time of Oral Examination, the Undergraduate Program Director (UPD) will provide folders to upload Degree Project Binders digitally via OneDrive.

The Degree Project Binder must contain the following:

Thesis Writing – Title Page, Artist Statement, and Annotated Bibliography (Compile as one document and save file as: lastname_firstname_Thesis.pdf)
Exhibition information, including: an event advertisement such as a postcard, poster, social media post, or web page, with location and dates (Save file as: lastname_firstname_advertisement.jpg)
Portrait or Headshot of the Artist (Save file as: lastname_firstname_Portrait.jpg)
BFA Thesis Committee Meeting Schedule signed by both committee members. (Save file as: lastname_firstname_Meeting_semester.pdf)
BFA Project Documentation – see next section.
Printed list of documented works, along with digital documentation of all works associated with the project – see next section.

Documentation

Include the following documentation:

Collect digital images of the final work and/or include video/sound files in a folder (accepted file types: .jpg, .mov, .mp4 or .mp3)
- For still works/images: JPEG files sized at a minimum of 1000 and a maximum of 2000 pixels wide, maximum 4 megabytes each.
- For time-based works: .MOV or .MP4 files, compressed to 5 GB or less
- Compress the folder as a .zip file
- Save file as: lastname_firstname_Media.zip
Create a PDF text document that lists each individual work in your project. (Save file as: lastname_firstname_Media_Details.pdf)

For each work, include:

Title
Date
Media
Dimensions
Thumbnail sized image 150-200 pixels wide.

The Thesis Timeline

Semester BEFORE Thesis Project begins:

First four weeks of semester – meet with faculty mentor to develop a thesis proposal
End of fourth week of semester (approximately October 1 in fall or March 1 in spring) – submit your proposal to the Undergraduate Program Director.
Mid-semester – faculty reviews proposals and committees are assigned
Undergraduate Program Director notifies student of proposal status before course enrollment begins for following semester
During course enrollment period – students with approved projects may register for ART 402 BFA Degree Project

Semester OF Thesis Project:

First two weeks of semester – Orientation meeting for all thesis students w/ UPD and Herter Director
First 4 weeks of semester – show schedule to be finalized by Herter Director
Regularly throughout semester – meetings w/ committee members
- Critiques and Feedback of Project Development
- Literature Review and relevant research
- Successive drafts of Artist Statement and Annotated Bibliography due according deadlines set by committee chair
By November 1 (fall) or March 15 (spring) – schedule Oral Exam with committee members
Before Oral Exam – send committee members final Artist Statement and Annotated Bibliography
After Oral Exam – if approved, thesis Title Page is signed by committee
By the last day of final exams – complete Degree Project Binder due to the Undergraduate Program Director via OneDrive.
By the last day of final exams, the committee chair submits a grade for the thesis to the Undergraduate Program Director.