Let Your Artistic Vision Take Flight and Soar to New Heights!

The CALMAT Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Integrates Artistic Skill with Technology Tools and Business Acumen

The CALMAT MFA is a new program that cultivates leaders and visionaries who can integrate technology, innovation, and management into their professional practice. The MFA Program is a two-year, full-time, studio-based program located in the center of Silicon Valley. The MFA offers two tracks: Creative Writing and Digital Media. With a small number of students enrolled in each cohort, the program provides a highly individualized experience, while its interdisciplinary nature encourages wide-ranging experimentation and intellectual exploration grounded in Silicon Valley’s rich culture of technology, innovation, and globalism. Students work closely with faculty and an expanded community of professional artists, critics, and curators who participate in the weekly Visiting Lecture series, teach Critical Studies courses, and collaborate in thesis committees.

The CALMAT MFA focuses on three critical competencies of success for creative writers and digital artists that distinguish CALMAT graduates from other MFAs: leadership, innovation, technology. Our students build a solid foundation of skills that allow them to effectively compete in a global economy.

Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, CALMAT provides its MFA students with exposure to the entrepreneurial success of the region. MFA faculty members have many years of experience starting companies, managing corporations, directing advanced product development, and consulting for major companies. The MFA program gives students the conceptual background necessary to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.

MFA Curriculum

48.0 credits and/or a thesis or project including 10 core courses and 2 elective courses required for completion.

Learning Outcomes

Students graduating from the MFA program with an emphasis in Creative Writing will be able to:

• Analyze forms and theories that have influenced the development of fiction, poetry, and/or drama
• Produce full-length works of publishable quality in their areas of specialty (original full-length collections of poetry, short stories, novels, or plays)
• Demonstrate proficiency in creative writing and composition pedagogy; edit
  and revise their own and others’ writing
• Produce significant, original e-portfolios documenting their development as either Writers-in-Residence or editors of hypertext literary journals

Students graduating from the MFA program with an emphasis in Digital Media will be able to:

• Communicate through interactive media
• Produce aesthetically pleasing visual design by applying visual principles
• Develop the Information Architecture that is usable and fulfill audiences needs
• Analyze marketing needs of clients
• Develop interactive media using advanced, industry level technology
• Present ideas professionally and persuasively using visual, oral, and written communication skills
• Develop a professional portfolio, including resume and personal website

Course Work

Core (40 Credits)

MFA 600 ~ Prosem
MFA 515 ~ Visiting Artist Forum
MFA 520 ~ Individual Studies (12.0 credits: 4.0 credits per semester x 3)
MFA 550 ~ Seminar in Contemporary Issues
MFA 551 ~ Fine Art and Interdisciplinary Studies
MFA 555 ~ Seminar in Art Theory and Criticism
MFA 699 ~ Graduate Capstone (8.0 credits: 4.0 credits per semester x 2)

Electives (8 Credits)

BUS 540 ~ Marketing
MFA 594 ~ Internship
CSIT 624 ~ Research Methods
BUS 630 ~ Project Management
BUS 651 ~ Entrepreneurship

MFA students may also take other graduate and undergraduate courses for elective credit, as approved by their advisor.

Master of Fine Arts Course Descriptions

MFA 515 ~ Visiting Artists Forum ~ 1.0 to 4.0 Credits
Provide CALMAT MFA students and faculty—as well as the wider Silicon Valley public—with direct access to major practitioners and theorists of contemporary global art and culture. The Visiting Artists Forum is an open forum through which MFA students are challenged both to go beyond basic canonical approaches to the study of art and to discover a global perspective that is enabled by, and further encourages, conceptual and comparative approaches.

MFA 550 ~ Seminar: Contemporary Issues ~ 4.0 Credits
Examines the writing and digital media discipline from 1950 through the present, exploring communication and arts trends, styles, periods, and leading writers and designers.

MFA 551 ~ Fine Art and Interdisciplinary Studies ~ 4.0 Credits
This course welcomes students of all practices, especially those that advance a collective understanding of what art is and what art can be. Students and faculty members in the program form a vibrant community of artists in an egalitarian, cooperative, and exploratory learning environment to cultivate artists with an original vision, refined expressive and technical skills, and experimentation of new artistic directions on a topic that reflects modern, technology-infused societies, especially in Silicon Valley. The program also welcomes students of practices that are not traditionally part of the Western art tradition.

MFA 555 ~ Seminar in Art Theory and Criticism ~ 4.0 Credits
Under the guidance of a faculty mentor in the genre, each student researches and completes a substantive critical project (25-30 pages, including bibliography) in one of the following areas of emphasis: craft of writing, literary theory/criticism in the genre, or creative writing pedagogy.

MFA 594 ~ Internship ~ 1.0 to 8.0 Credits
Students work with practicing professionals in the community in a volunteer or paid internship that requires critical thinking and specialized telecommunication, multimedia, or applied computing skills in the context of their MFA studies. The amount of academic work completed, not total hours of internship commitment, determines the amount of academic credit.

MFA 596 ~ Directed Studies ~ 1.0 to 4.0 Credits
A crucial part of the MFA program is to select a topic relevant to the student’s emphasis and study closely with a faculty member or other accomplished artist. Typically taken three times by an MFA student, once per semester before starting capstone project, a tangible deliverable (i.e.,a digital media or writing work) will be included.

MFA 600 ~ Prosem ~ 4.0 Credits
Entry point for the Master of Fine Arts program. Surveys the history and trends of the career field and their interactions with technology and management. Orientation to the University and the program will be covered.

MFA 699 ~ Graduate Capstone ~ 1.0 to 8.0 Credits
An advanced, culminating course in the MFA program. Each student will be responsible for planning, producing, completion, evaluating, documenting and presenting a substantial, professional-level work in the domain of arts s/he emphasizes. As there are no scheduled class meetings, students will work independently while periodically seeking the assistance and approval of their thesis/capstone committee. The committee must approve the proposal, milestones and budget. Failure to seek the approval of the committee may result in a no-pass mark. Enrollment contingent upon the successful completion of 24.0 credits of course work and the approval of the student’s committee. Course may be repeated for credit.

For a complete list of course descriptions, see Course Descriptions.