Art and Design

Faculty: Pishkur - Chair, Bagherzadeh, Bentley, McKenzie, Mintert, Outhouse
Fine Arts Building • 417-625-9563

The Department of Art and Design strives to educate artists who become working educators, designers, and studio artists. Relevant education experience in the visual arts is delivered though quality teaching, experiential learning and mentorship. We ensure graduates have deeply meaningful, immersive, educationally enriching, and developmental curricular or co-curricular experiences. We foster and focus student passion for visual art through a strong foundation program with exposure to multiple international and aesthetic experiences while providing resources and an environment that nurtures conceptual, critical thinking and creative problem solving.

Incoming majors share a series of foundational classes covering a range of art materials, concepts, and techniques, allowing students to create objects and images spanning a broad selection of media and methods while improving the essential skills required for them to specialize in their chosen areas of focus.

For students seeking to become a K-12 art teacher our curriculum includes a nationally accredited, Council for the Accreditation of Education Preparation (CAEP), Bachelor of Science in Education (BSEd). Our Bachelors of Visual Arts (BA) degree provides for students wanting to pursue an arts related field including, but not limited to; art conservation, art history, art therapy, gallery management, or museum studies. For students pursuing a career as a content creator, either as a designer or traditional studio artist, we offer two, professional, eighty credit-hour Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degrees; design and studio art.

Students gain entrance to our selective BFA programs through a portfolio review process. BFA students are then mentored by designated faculty committees which meet with them each semester to develop both a thesis and capstone project. This allows students to develop a research-based approach to their practice while developing personal, specialized interests.

Degree requirements in the various art programs are such that it is extremely important for students majoring in art to meet with their faculty advisors each semester. There are two major, direct assessments of candidates for all art degrees: ART 295 Foundation Review (entrance examination) and ART 495 Capstone Experience (public presentation/exit examination).

Additional minors; art history, design, and studio art as well as certificates in; illustration, interdisciplinary photography, new media, and publication design allow undergraduates across campus to gain art and design related, workforce ready credentials. Visiting speakers and art-affiliated student organizations enrich the campus life experience for all students while our active programming of monthly international, national, regional, and student exhibitions in our Spiva Gallery and our large study-collection of African art and artifacts provide immersive research opportunities in gallery and museum studies.

At the graduate level, we offer a certificate in post-baccalaureate studies in art for students preparing for entrance to graduate schools and curriculum that integrates with the Teacher Education Department’s Master of Science in Education, Curriculum and Instruction degree.

We believe every person should have the opportunity to participate in and experience art and design. The arts are a transformative way to honor, teach, and learn about cultures and experiences different than one’s own. We are dedicated to social justice and respect for individual and group identities and therefore do not discriminate based on race, culture, age, social-economic status, religion, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, pregnancy, or any other basis for discrimination. We are eager to listen, learn, and do better to undo systemic injustices that impact us all.

The Department of Art and Design respectfully acknowledges our role as settlers and guests on the traditional, ancestral lands of the Osage Nation. The process of knowing and acknowledging the land we stand on is a way of honoring and expressing gratitude for the ancestral Osage people who were on this land before us. We appreciate the influence of the vibrant cultures of Indigenous peoples and are conscious of the role in colonization that institutions of learning have played.

ART 0110 - Art Appreciation , ART 0251 or ART 0252 meets the General Education/Core 42 requirement for non-art majors in the area 5B Fine Arts.

For additional information contact:
Frank A. Pishkur• Fine Arts Building
417-625-9735 • pishkur-f@mssu.edu

Programs

Major Programs (Undergraduate)

Certificates (Undergraduate)

Certificates (Graduate)

Post-Baccalaureate Studies in Art Certificate, GAR0

Minors (Undergraduate)

Teacher Education Programs

Art Education Major, Grades K-12, BSE

Courses

Art and Design

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