By Grace Tesoro, Staff Writer
Susquehanna introduced its first ever bachelor of fine arts program within the department of arts and design, allowing students studying graphic design to receive more credits than the original bachelor of arts degree.
Mark Fertig, department head of art and design created the curriculum proposal, a process that started in the fall of 2018.
Amanda Lenig, associate professor of graphic design, said that in some ways this is something the department had been thinking about and working on for years.
“The proposal goes through the curriculum committee who reviews it, makes sure that it is in line with standards of other B.F.A. programs nationally, makes sure the classes make sense,” Lenig said.
“It’s more of a separate degree, is what it is,” Lenig said. “The B.F.A is a degree that offers more credits, but more importantly than that, it allows for more credits in a specific area of study. We were able to create a program that will allow students to take 72 credits in graphic design instead of our prior degree which was 60 credits.”
Lenig further explained what this new degree looks like for the curriculum.
“We were able to ask that graphic design students take more studio art classes, such as fine art, drawing, photography, painting, or print making,” Lenig said.
“We were also able to add to their art history experience, adding some additional classes to the requirements.”
According to Lenig, the bachelor of arts being offered now for graphic design is now for 48 credits. This was designed so that Susquehanna students taking on another major of focus can have a second degree or major in graphic design, as well as be able to utilize the bachelor of arts option to add graphic design skills to their program of emphasis.
Lenig highlighted the fact that this new degree allows Susquehanna to “stay in the game” when it comes to competing against other universities who offer bachelor of fine arts in their curriculum.
“There are a lot of regional schools that we compete with as well as other universities that also offer this that would be comparable. While we still feel our curriculum is as strong as it was, we are putting a different label on it.”
Lenig expressed that “[i]t is going to require some thoughtful scheduling but so many of the graphic design students were getting close to that 72-credit marker anyway, so we felt that it made more sense to make sure we were giving them a degree they worked for.”
Lenig also added that despite these new changes, the new program with the increased number of credits is manageable.