Nov.-Dec. 2011 - Maryland Institute College of Art

MICA welcomed its largest class ever during Orientation in September.
MICA Welcomes Record-Breaking
Freshman Class
Students Include Winners of Prestigious
National Scholarships
When 520 neW freshmen stepped foot on MICA’s campus
earlier this year, they not only made up the largest entering
class in the College’s history—they also represented MICA’s
most accomplished batch of incoming students. While MICA
routinely attracts well-rounded artists and designers, as well as
student leaders, athletes, musicians, writers, and more, this year’s
crop of freshmen is especially talented.
As Theresa Bedoya, vice president for admission and
financial aid, explained, “This past September, we welcomed
two young artists who were each recipients of two prestigious
scholarships. Competition for these awards is intense, and
it’s rare that you see someone who captures more than one
such honor. The fact we attracted two students with these
accomplishments, students who literally had their choice
of art schools and who were being actively recruited by our
competition, is a testament to MICA’s national reputation.”
One of the students Bedoya is so enthusiastic about is Lee
Heinemann, a US Presidential Scholar in the Arts and Scholastic
Gold Award winner from Kansas City, Missouri. Heinemann,
who plans to pursue a BFA in general fine arts, entered MICA
with a profound interest in and experience with communityfocused
art. Before entering college, he volunteered at a
nonprofit community arts organization named Whoop Dee Doo
Story continues on page 14.
New Grad Programs
Propel Smart Artists,
Designers
a lonGtime leader in the Graduate
eduCation of visual artists, MICA
continues to create programs that will heighten the
impact graduates have on our culture and society.
MA in Critical Studies
The MA in Critical Studies will prepare artists and
designers interested in the scholarly investigation of
contemporary art to become art professionals, critics,
journalists, and scholars. A faculty of scholar-teachers,
led by a committee from the departments of humanistic
studies and art history, theory, and criticism, will guide
students in the production of cutting-edge criticism
for both scholarly and popular venues. The program is
distinguished by its intensive, yearlong grounding in critical
research and analysis, as well as by the flagship graduate
colloquium, designed to engage graduate students across
the College campus in critical discourse.
“The MA in Critical Studies program seeks to empower
and engage a new generation of art and design writers,
thinkers, and practitioners to better navigate and succeed
in these complex contexts,” Gunalan Nadarajan, vice
provost for research and graduate studies said.
For more information on this program visit
www.mica.edu/criticalstudies.
MBA/MA in Design Leadership
INNOVATION 13
To provide business, engineering, and design-focused
students with the training they will need to become
leaders of innovation in the worlds of business or
nonprofit organizations, a new program has been
developed in which students earn an MBA from
The Johns Hopkins University’s Carey School of
Business and an MA in Design Leadership from MICA.
Students will learn to apply the principles of design
thinking to complex problem solving and opportunity
development—integrating creativity, collaboration, iterative
processes, tolerance for new ideas, research, intuition,
and synthesis with traditional and emerging business
practices. Course topics will range from strategy, finance,
statistics, economics, ethics, law, marketing, operations,
and human capital management to creativity, visualization,
prototyping, cultural relevance and awareness, design
theory, sustainability, and social responsiveness.
For more information on this program visit
www.mica.edu/mba.