From: "tglatz" <tglatz-AT-mosquitonet.com>
Subject: Re: bashing academia
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 09:03:35 -0800


There is a school like this in the U.S. called Vermont College of Norwich
University that offers an MFA in visual art and creative writing.  I'm
graduating from there in August.

>Maybe one where students could go and do literally whatever they
>wanted, create whatever projects whatever they wanted,

I was able to develop my own visual art projects.  All studio work is done
wherever you live (there are students there from all over the US and some
international) and then you spend a couple weeks at the school showing it.
There was an incredible variety of work shown each semester I was there and
generally artists started the program doing one thing, say drawing, and
would end up graduating with something like film.  It isn't about producing
a huge body of repititious "mastery".

--read whatever books they wanted, write whatever papers
>they wanted,

You also choose and read what you want.  Some people wrote personal
journals.  Others did highly sophisticated work in theory.

>go to whatever lectures they
>wanted, take part in whatever seminars they wanted,

There is a rotating staff of lecturers and seminars for two weeks every 6
months.  They are drawn from everywhere between NYC critics, professionals
artists (with or without degrees), international stars on the theory circuit
and so on.

 >get whatever
>they wanted out of it.

That happens everywhere.  A lot of students got blown away by the amount of
freedom offered and were so used to traditional schooling, being told what
to do, that they initially had a difficult time.

 >You couldn't expect to get a degree out of such a
>place

I'm getting an MFA

>... but you wouldn't go there to get a degree.

Some are there for the degree.  A lot aren't.

>(The all-too-obvious problem with the
>former kind of place is that they would be unable to raise much money, and
>even if they could, they would only be attended regularly by people
>sufficiently wealthy to have that much time to devote to something out of
>which they could expect no financial return.)

The school is state accredited for whatever that's worth -- you can get the
regular student loans.  But, yes, it's very expensive.  Most people are able
to hold full-time jobs and still get through.

Tglatz