The following is a list of proposed curricular changes that we have calculated would be most effective in improving the character

of the School of Art. Many concern Foundations, and we have also included some of the less obvious problems within DAAP that are dragging down the School of Art. Also requiring attention but not included are graduate students teaching in Foundations and Senior Thesis Seminar. The purpose of this list is to emphasize the necessity of change on a comprehensive scale. Curricular changes: The foremost important possibility that we can foresee is a unified Foundations program across all schools of DAAP. We know that several proposals toward this end have been written and we suggest a strong consideration of those. In addition, if they were made public, organized student feedback could serve a crucial role in implementation. Create an Introduction to Cincinnati/Art School course: Take the model of the StudioBased Inquiry in Berlin course and transfer it to Foundations. Show Foundations students DAAP and the citys manufacturing facilities that students can have at their disposal, exhibition spaces for professionals and students, and include studio visits with professors and local artists. Implementing an experience-based studio practice. Requiring proper documentation of work for every studio beginning in Foundations. Design and Architecture must have well-designed and maintained portfolios; Fine Arts should too, with an emphasis on building a professional portfolio. Professional documentation should be stressed from the beginning and not put off until junior or senior year. This will also take some pressure off the Professional Practices class. Eliminating the notion that students have joined fine arts because they arent goo d enough to do anything else. A more focused recruitment, along with encouraging confidence and teaching craft/skill, will help resolve this issue. Promote an outreach to communities and high schools to introduce people potentially interested in attending UC to contemporary art. This might be addressed through encouraging students to present on what they have accomplished at DAAP, i.e., having students present projects or Wolfstein presentations, much like is often required for Honors seminars or UC International grants. This might be best addressed implicitly rather than as an organized operation of the school. An expectation of writing beginning in and growing from Foundations. The notion that artists dont have to research or write should be eliminated. Many students enroll in Fine Arts with the belief that they will not have to write. It is common to hear students say, Art is about imagery, not writing. My work should speak for itself. Im not good at writing, thats why I chose art.

The actual teaching of digital programs beginning in Foundations. As for the rebuttal against this direct pedagogy, suggesting that the students simply utilize Lynda.com or a comparative program on their own time, this advice is most likely to be followed only by the most motivated students. However, these students are often occupied with existing studio commitments and do not have the time to learn new programs and skills on their own. There must be an acknowledgement that this teaching technique does not work for all students. Elimination of Visual Arts Concepts series and integration of the courses readings and curriculum into studios to minimize the gap between practice and theory. We fully support and want to highlight the importance of the Visual Arts Concepts curriculum to the Fine Arts program. However, the distance from studio and heavy amount of work required pressures students into merely skimming the material or simply not reading it. Spreading the readings and writings out over the four years of the program will ease the burden of the class and promote student engagement with the material. The readings could be dispersed by semester, studio course, and academic progress. This also requires faculty to be well read in the materials. In addition, they may individualize certain readings to fit the interests of students and studios. A stronger emphasis on where students work fits in the canon of art history through discussion of the relationship of students subjects and concepts to art history. This emphasis should grow through time spent in the Fine Arts program, increasing awareness of students niches before they leave the institution. Drawing of distinctions and overlappings of physical processes/digital media through better integration of digital tools and the Rapid Prototyping Center into the curriculum of Fine Arts studios. We live in a world where these tools are incredibly relevant, and students should have an understanding of how to utilize them. Professional Practices would be better served in the sophomore year. This allows students to become comfortable with professional formats and to practice for a longer period before leaving the program. Cross-discipline critiques with involvement of all of DAAP would be greatly beneficial, particularly at Foundations and Advanced levels. Our minimal experience of collaboration with the other schools has proven extremely successful and our main regret is that we didnt collaborate earlier in our college experience. The different skills and mindsets have been valuable to a number of projects. More summer classes. Students are still around in the summer and want to take classes. Foundry in particular has been requested due to its inaccessibility during fall and spring semesters. The foundry is a valuable and rare resource to the school and students want as much access as possible. Students in Art History and Fine Arts should be more integrated. Both sets of students have much to gain from the other, including community, yet are currently segregated.

Certain faculty and departments are not serving students needs. Others are under recognized, including several graduate students, yet are better instructors than many others on the faculty. We are prepared to discuss this situation with the proper circumstances. Hidden Problems within DAAP: Employment among most students is a necessity. Students in Architecture Foundations are explicitly told that they will not succeed in the field if they are employed and study at the same time. However, this is not a possibility among Fine Arts students yet it creates a major roadblock to productivity and community. Most scholarships go to Architecture and Design on both DAAP and University levels. The rationale we have heard for this is that graduates of Fine Arts do not succeed on the same level as their peers in other disciplines. Therefore, it is in the colleges interest to invest in those who will succeed, as in Architecture and Design. However, this encourages students to enter these other disciplines. In addition, the low level of financial assistance to Fine Arts applicants would persuade the more qualified to choose a different school that can offer more scholarships. We dont want to become Architecture. The have an extremely close community, a vital co-op program, and an impressively strong work ethic that we would like to adapt. However, they are business-driven, rarely experience and/or integrate into the larger community of Cincinnati, support the hierarchy within DAAP, are driven through competition and negativity, and become unhealthily obsessed with their profession. We seek to have the tempo of Fine Arts increased, but not to a point where we lose ourselves in it.

Thank you, John Manibusan Alex McClay Carmen Ostermann Phillip Schaefer Emily Schmitt Drew Yakscoe