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The School

The School of Visual Arts (SVA) is currently the largest independent college of art in the country, with a full-time enrollment of approximately 3,000. Students who choose SVA are often attracted by the breadth and professional standing of the faculty members, the passion of the student body, the rigors of the curriculum, the industry standards within the studio facilities, and the energy and excitement that is New York City.

Location

Located in the heart of New York City, SVA offers students the opportunity to become involved in one of Americas largest and most vibrant cities, the art capital of the world. The energy, the spirit, and the desire to be the bestthree characteristics of New York Cityconstantly challenge and inspire the students. The unparalleled leadership and accomplishment of the citys arts and design communities demand excellence, and the School of Visual Arts prepares students to compete successfully in this environment.

Majors and Degrees

SVA offers Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.) degrees in advertising, animation, cartooning, computer art, film and video, fine arts, graphic design, illustration, interior design, photography, and visual and critical studies.

Academic Programs

The curriculum has been designed to prepare students to graduate as working professionals in the arts. Consequently, the four-year curriculum is designed to allow students greater freedom of choice in electives and requirements with each succeeding year. The first year of the program, a foundation year, ensures the mastery of basic skills in the chosen discipline as well as in writing and art history. After the first year, students choose their own area of concentration and, under the guidance of the academic advisers and faculty members, pursue their own individual goals. The B.F.A. degree programs require the completion of 120 credits, including 72 studio credits, 12 in art history, 6 in electives, and 30 in humanities and sciences.

Off-Campus Programs

Students have the opportunity to participate in art programs abroad during the summer semester in Barcelona, Florence, and Toulouse. SVA also offers third-year students in photography, graphic design, illustration, interior design, film and video, and fine arts the opportunity to study abroad at an AIAS (Association of Independent Art Schools) affiliate in Europe.

Academic Facilities

The Animation Department has fully equipped animation studios, a Stop Motion Control Studio, digital pencil test facilities, a Motion Control Pencil test stand and control tables, and a new, state-of-the-art Digital Compositing Ink and Paint facility. Film students use Bolex cameras, Arriflex S camera packages, and Arriflex BL camera packages. The department also houses a large inventory of lighting and grip equipment.

Sound inventory includes Fostex digital time code recorders, Sony D-10 Pro II DAT recorders, Nagra recorders, an audio transfer facility, and a large collection of specialized microphones and mixers. There is also a film library that houses more than 1,500 titles from a variety of film, video, DVD, laser, and tape formats. A 100-seat film theater is available for cinema studies classes.

Students utilize a variety of digital cameras: VX-1000, VX-2000, PD-100, and PD-150 digital video cameras and more than thirty Sony digital handycams. Thesis and third-year students have access to ENG-style professional camcorders, including UVW-100, DSR-370, and DXC-537 cameras and support accessories, including production monitors, remotes, follow focus units, and matte boxes.

Postproduction facilities include a state-of-the-art Avid nonlinear editing center containing Avid X-press DVs, a newly created Final Cut Pro facility, and a new digital postproduction audio facility complete with Pro Tools Mix24 suites. The department also supports multiplatform dub rooms with Beta SP, DVCAM, DVCPRO, S-VHS, DAT decks, and a telecine projection system.

In the Fine Arts Department, there are eleven large, well-ventilated studios with slop sinks and storage closets for foundation and second- and third-year drawing and painting workshops. Fourth-year students have their own studio spaces.

Printmaking studios are fully equipped for etching, lithography, silkscreen, papermaking, and woodcut/lino and mono print. The litho room has five lithography presses and a graining sink; etching has four etching presses, a rosin box, and hot plates; and silkscreen has a 48-inch by 48-inch exposure unit and screen darkroom and reclaiming facilities. There is a complete platemaking darkroom containing a flip top Nu Arc exposing unit for making photo lithography and etching plates, a developing sink, and a plate cutter. In addition to traditional hand-drawn separations, students can create digital color separations in the printmaking output facilities. The facilities contain four Macintosh G5 computers and one 7200 Macintosh used as a scanning station (8.5-inch by 14-inch maximum scanning area). Each computer has a Zip drive and Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and QuarkXPress installed. A large output laser printer (12-inch by 36-inch maximum) and a Toshiba photocopier (11-inch by 17-inch maximum) are available for creating separations.

The Sculpture Center has facilities for welding, woodworking, stone carving, ceramics, and performance and video art. The wood, metal, stone, and ceramic facilities are equipped with everything artists need for the physical construction of their work. The woodshop has a table saw, a sliding compound miter saw, a panel saw, a table sander, four band saws, and two drill presses. In the metalshop are three MIG welders, two ARC welders, one TIG welder, two plasma cutters, a horizontal and a vertical band saw, a sand blaster, and OXY-ACE torches. Stone facilities have air hammers and stone chisels. The ceramic studio has two electric kilns that fire up to cone 7, a clay extruder, six potters wheels, and a slab roller. In addition to these facilities, there is a toolroom stocked with power hand tools and safety equipment. The Sculpture Center also has a performance area, a live-model area, and a slide room for presentations. The video computer lab has seven digital video cameras, three video projectors, and a postproduction facility consisting of three G3 and G4 iMacs and two G4 iMacs with Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Final Cut Pro, and DVD Pro software, which allows for professional editing and special effects. The center also manages an audiovisual facility with slide and video projectors, VCRs, DVDs, monitors, and audio equipment.

Fine Arts majors can choose to concentrate in traditional mediums of painting, drawing, sculpture, or printmaking; in recent trends in installation, computer art, or time-based media in computer, video, or performance art; in alternative media; or any combination of the above.

Graphic design and advertising students use the Digital Imaging Center, which houses 140 Macintosh G5 computers with CD/DVD burners. Peripheral drives include floppy drives, Zip drives, and Compact Flash/Smart Media card readers. There are sixteen high-definition flatbed scanners, a Polaroid film recorder, and a Polaroid slide scanner as well as nine high-quality laser printers, including two HP color printers and three Fuji dye-sub printers. The Broadcast Media room has Sony DV decks, JVC S-VHS VCRs, and Sony NTSC monitors. Students have access to Nikon digital cameras and Sony DV video cameras. Software includes Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects, QuarkXPress, Macromedia Director, Macromedia Dreamweaver, Macromedia Flash, Apple Final Cut Pro, Cleaner, and other print media, Web design, and broadcast design applications. The equipment and software enables the students to produce and output work at a superior and highly professional quality. In addition, the Digital Imaging Centers workshop has twenty-two drafting tables for drawing, cutting, and mounting artwork for presentations. The workshop also provides the students with color copiers.

SVAs Computer Art Department continues to feature the finest and most powerful digital tools available. Currently, there are twenty-one SGI, twenty-one Intergraph, twenty-one Boxx, and 171 Apple Macintosh computers in fifteen instructional labs and DV editing facilities. The department features the latest software applications, including AliasWavefront Maya, SoftImage, Discreet Logic Flint, 3D Studio Max, Adobe AfterEffects, Adobe Photoshop, MacroMedia Director, and QuarkXPress. Computer art majors can choose to concentrate their studies in the fields of computer animation, interactive media, or dynamic media.

The Photography Departments black-and-white darkrooms are equipped with ninety omega D5XL enlargers for printing everything from Minox to 4-inch by 5-inch negatives. There is also an enlarger specifically designed to handle 8-inch by 10-inch negatives. Twenty-seven of these enlargers are equipped with dichroic color heads for making RA-4 prints. SVA also houses nine black-and-white film-processing workstations and two 30-inch Kreonite Promate RA4 processors. The color print viewing area is equipped with GTI 5000K viewing booths. The BFA Photo Departments two state-of-the-art digital labs contain a total of forty-three Macintosh G5 student workstations, and two instructors G5s with projectors. All of these computers are loaded with digital-imaging software, including Photoshop 7, Illustrator 10, and Final Cut Pro and all of the necessary hardware and software to download images and video from digital cameras. All of the G5s are equipped with DVD/CD burners.

In addition, the labs contain six Nikon Coolscan film scanners capable of scanning 120mm and 35mm transparencies, four Epson Perfection flatbed scanners for reflective material up to 11-inch by 17-inch, and eight Epson Stylus Photo 870 printers. All of these workstations are networked together and provide Internet access for students. The seven shooting studios are included in the Photography Departments computer network, and each studio is set up with an iMac equipped with a CD burner, a Zip 250, and a Smart Card reader to allow the students to download and save digital images. Digital cameras available for student use include seventeen Canon D30 digital camera kits, twenty Nikon Coolpix 950, 990, and 4500 digital cameras, and thirty Sony digital video cameras. Students have access to a wide range of studio equipment, including Profoto strobes; Vivitar, Quantum, and Lumidyne portable flashes; Lowel quartz lights; Ari quartz lights; and an assortment of lighting accessories. SVA also provides large- and medium-format cameras for the students to use. SVAs stock includes twelve Hasselblad kits, seven Mamiya RZ67 kits, ten Mamiya 645 kits, six Mamiya M7 kits, four Contax 645 AF kits, Toyo 4x5 view and field cameras, a variety of Polaroid cameras, and 8x10 studio and field cameras.

The Interior Design program is FIDER-accredited. The curriculum integrates well-known professional faculty members and state-of-the-art technology with the traditions of drawing and drafting, with an emphasis on design. Classes are held in a studio environment. Each student has a personal 3-foot by 5-foot fully equipped drafting station and unlimited use of computers. Architectural Desktop, FormZ Radiosity, and 3D Studio VIZ software are in a 3D AutoCAD lab for exclusive use by interior design students. Output options include a large-format Hewlett Packard Designjet ColorPro CAD, a Hewlett-Packard Designjet 1055CM plotter, and an Epson Stylus Photo 2200.

SVAs library holdings include distinctive multimedia collections, more than 65,000 books, more than 260 current periodical subscriptions, and special collections of pictures, color slides, film scripts, comics, videotapes, exhibition catalogs, CD-ROMs, and recordings. The college has three campus galleries as well as a gallery at 601West 26th Street, in the heart of Chelsea.

Costs

Tuition for the 200708 academic year is $23,520. SVA offers housing at costs that range from $8500 to $14,500 per academic year. Other annual costs vary greatly, but it is estimated that supplies cost up to $3150 each year, depending on the department.

Financial Aid

During the 200607 academic year, 74percent of incoming students received financial aid. Students interested in financial aid are required to file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). There are also scholarships available to both first-time freshman and transfer applicants.

Faculty

The faculty at SVA is composed of more than 700 practicing artists and designers who represent an array of fields in the fine and applied arts. Each faculty member has chosen to commit to the professional art world as well as to teaching the next generation of artists. As a result of the colleges policy of using working professionals to teach, the college has been able to attract to the faculty some of the most prominent artists in New York.

Student Government

The Visual Arts Student Association (VASA), the student government organization, represents the student point of view at SVA. The three officers elected to VASA each year serve as the liaisons between students and the administrators. VASA also funds and supports a number of clubs that are organized by students.

Admission Requirements

Admissions requirements are as follows: application for undergraduate admission form, nonrefundable $50 application fee ($80 for international applicants), official transcripts from all high schools and colleges attended, results of the SAT or ACT, statement of intent, and portfolio (two-part essay for film and video applicants). Applicants whose primary language is not English are required to demonstrate their English proficiency, and international applicants must submit a declaration of finances (DOF) form, a verification of finances (VOF), and a copy of their Alien Registration Card.

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