Visual Arts
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CFA AR 566: Processes and Structures (4 credits; spring semester)
This course is designed to cause students to be more acutely aware of the visual-expressive resources at their command. Emphasis is placed on personal inquiry and analytical reflection that enables students to translate artistic knowledge into studio lessons for children. Students consider the structures that can emerge from working with various studio processes using both two- and three-dimensional materials. Visual ideas are developed and resolved through coordinated sequences of action and identifying the sources and terms of personal expression. Portfolio Preparation for High School Juniors is a five-week pre-practicum for students in this course who design and teach lessons on Saturday mornings aimed at helping students prepare artwork conventionally required of potential studio majors for application to college. It is a focused short-term course that is offered to high school juniors attending Boston metropolitan area schools. This pre-practicum fulfills the 25 pre-student teaching practicum hours required of studio teaching students who intend to apply for teaching certification. -
CFA AR 567: Teaching Art to Special Populations (2 credits; spring semester)
This course is designed to inform the art specialist of some beneficial ways for integrating students with special needs into heterogeneous classroom settings. Students investigate ways in which the artistic process can be made accessible to all students regardless of their emotional, intellectual, or physical capacities as required by State and national laws. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Ethical Reasoning. -
CFA AR 572: Internship
This course is for juniors and seniors pursuing an internship for college credit. Internship hours range from 80-150 hours during the course of 6-14 weeks. Students meet in consultation with an Internship and Faculty advisor for critiques of internship work. A final presentation of work is required at the end of the semester. 2.0 credits. -
CFA AR 578: Graduate Thesis Prep
This class is an overview of advanced research techniques and methods and their application to design problems. Topics relevant to graphic design will be explored with an emphasis on structuring research in preparation for the graduate thesis. Students will integrate the research and document the design process in a written and visual form. 2 cr. -
CFA AR 580: History of Graphic Design
Chronological survey of theory and practice of graphic design from the Industrial Revolution to the present. Through slide lecture, reading assignments, discussion and a studio project, we will actively investigate how graphic design responded to and influenced its social, political and technological context. Emphasis will be on European and American design histories, in addition to major movements in Russia and the East. Comparative and symbiotic relationships between graphic design and other visual arts and design disciplines such as architecture and industrial design will be analyzed. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy. -
CFA AR 581: Web Design
This course addresses the principles, problems, and applications of web design. HTML and CSS will be taught, giving the students the ability to control the design and presentation of online information in its most basic form. Emphasis is on content, usability, site architecture, navigation and interactivity.1st and 2nd semester. -
CFA AR 586: Child Growth and Development in Art Education
What are the theories of artistic development of children, and how do these build on or differ from each other? How have these theories changed over time? What is the relationship between child development and cultural context? We will examine the role of the senses, emotions, and cognition in shaping artistic development and of the layered integrations these form over time. Qualitative and arts-based research, presentations, discussions and written reflections will provide the various forms through which demonstrate one's understanding of the artistic development of children and youth. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Research and Information Literacy. -
CFA AR 587: Information Design
This course explores ways of graphically structuring information. Students will learn process, organize and ultimately symbolize and visualize complex and quantitative information. Focus is on information graphics that reveal multiple hierarchies of data, through which new relationships are made visible. Representation (determining an appropriate form language for an idea) and narrative structure (main organizing principle) are the frameworks that will be studied in order to create precise, clear, legible and efficient communication. Open to undergraduate and graduate graphic design students. 2 cr. -
CFA AR 589: Interactive Design
This course opens the door to different ways of thinking and making forms, and adding interactivity through computer programming and looks at how it can be used for creative projects by creating a new context or extending what we already know. Class time will be split between lectures, work sessions, discussions, presentations and critiques. 2cr -
CFA AR 595: Visual Systems
This course is focused on research and application of visual systems as a subject matter. Student investigations of modules and relatedness will form how visual systems direct and influence a creative process. While most design assignments require a visual or typographic system this course will address systems as a conceptual inquiry. Students will conduct a holistic exploration of abstract and physical systems to consider speculative solutions grounding visual systems in context. Lectures will discuss systems in nature, sciences, architecture, math, music and linguistics as well as technological applications within the design and art world. Design problems will approach analysis of systems and form as a visual response related to object, material and space. Open to undergraduate and graduate students this elective course meets once a week. 2cr; meets 3 hours a week. -
CFA AR 600: Contemporary Issues in Art Education (Online Only)
Examines current trends in practice and theory as well as artists of the past and present who express contemporary personal, social and global concerns in their work. Discussions are focused on how the course content can influence classroom curriculum and instruction. Students conduct library research to find related articles on a topic relative to the course content. Assignments are written, visual and digital. -
CFA AR 601: Graduate Typography
The ability to communicate graphically and typographically sits at the forefront a successful graphic design practice. Graduate typography presents an opportunity for advanced study of the relationship between form and language in order to develop a strong typographic acumen for print and screen. Students will build upon fundamental elements of typography to explore advanced practical and hypothetical applications. Projects rely on a mastery of traditional typographic methods as a basis to discover innovative typographic forms and concepts for print and screen. 4 credits. 3 contact hours per week. Fall or spring semester. -
CFA AR 610: Teaching Art to Special Populations (Online Only)
This course will introduce the historical, legal, and educational facets of special populations in the United States with a focus on art education. Special populations are people with needs that require individualized attention, awareness and considerations in an educational setting. The goal of this course is to introduce and explain characteristic behaviors, strengths and weaknesses of various disabilities and discuss strategies for instruction, classroom management, and accommodations for the art classroom. Existing and emerging technologies and pedagogical methods will be discussed in order to make the artistic process accessible and meaningful to all students regardless of their emotional, intellectual, or physical capacities. -
CFA AR 620: Art Curriculum Planning (Online Only)
The study of contemporary techniques for implementation of goals in planning curricula and programs of study for all levels Pre-K-8 and 5-12. Instruction includes consideration of scope and sequence in relation to stages of development, and community and individual needs. A substantial terminal written project is required. -
CFA AR 621: Site-spec. Art
This graduate level elective will be interdisciplinary and open to students in all majors, both in the Visual Arts program and all other schools in the university. The course aims to instruct students in the professional practice of making site-specific art commissions for public and private clients. The students will gain professional skills in the development of a site-specific work of art that will require the utilization of a variety of media, an interdisciplinary approach and team work. Students will also learn how to work and negotiate with prospective clients who wish to contract site-specific art for particular settings and architectural environments. Credit amount varies. -
CFA AR 638: Drawing Concepts
Discussion of a broad range of drawing issues, including drawing from memory, and from secondary sources. Introduction of subjects explored in non-representational drawing traditions. Drawing process will be emphasized through a study of drawing media- such as water-based inks and paints, collage, and pastel- to address both aesthetic and technical concerns. 4 cr -
CFA AR 639: Figure Drawing
The focus of this class will be to teach students to think and understand the principles of drawing as a visual language. Class will involve an in-depth study of the human figure. Students will make a series of drawings and sketches in a variety of mediums, including graphite, charcoal, conte, ink, etc. Students will study from a live model, and will use the human figure as a vehicle to better understand the fundamentals of organic form, proportion, and balance. 4 cr -
CFA AR 640: Professional Practice: Internship
Students gain exposure to on the job professional experience and networks. Students can work in any design related industry building skills in a chosen subject matter including editorial, advertising, branding, design thinking, information design, motion graphics, ui/ux, web design. -
CFA AR 670: Advocacy and Policy in Arts Education (Online only)
This course is intended to address policy issues and advocacy strategies for leaders in the arts. Local, State and National Arts Education policies and advocacy programs will be addressed. Students will research agencies, partners and other organizations beyond the schools that serve as sources for advocacy and often influence policy. Students in this course should develop the knowledge and expertise in understanding needs for change and developing plans for advocacy. -
CFA AR 680: Insightful and Creative Leadership in Arts Education
This course is designed to acquaint and prepare in service art teachers with the basic skills and organizational strategies of leadership and management that are needed to serve within school systems and arts educational organizations. Our goal is to prepare in-service art teachers for insightful and strategic leadership within arts educational settings and to be effective agents of change along with being effective teachers and researchers. The course is grounded in theory as well as practice and brings together a community of art educators who will come together ' virtually' through collaborative exercises as well as will have opportunities to work with their own school leadership teams. This course will also bring in guest speakers, exemplary practitioners, researchers and policy makers from academia, public schools and school districts, charter schools and education management organizations, private and independent schools, business, and other organizations to share their experience, research, and insights about effective leadership practices.