With a rapidly growing class size, the Studio Art department faces challenges in accommodating an increased need for support, structure, and communication. Since last fall, Studio Art fourth-years have been individually contemplating various concerns largely related to the capstone sequence. College fourth-year Camille Thorp has spearheaded recent conversations to bring these issues to faculty with the mission of improving the capstone experience for current and future seniors.
On Feb. 9, Thorp organized an initial meeting with Zé Kielwagen, assistant professor of Sculpture, and 10 Studio Art seniors — a third of the 2026 Studio Art class size. During this meeting, students discussed their overlapping concerns: lack of productivity during the 7–10 p.m. studio time on Mondays and Wednesdays, inefficient structure of three-hour critiques, and more. Thorp explained the struggles that she had been facing with the program.
“I started having these ideas last semester while having personal issues with the way the class structure worked due to my chronic illness and disability,” she said. “I struggled with the lack of clear instructions and expectations in writing and felt that my studio was inaccessible, even harmful to my health, but was afraid to advocate for myself because I didn’t get a response to my request for accommodations.”
Originally, Thorp was under the impression that she was the only one struggling. However, through informal conversations and sharing grievances with her peers, she realized that the obstacles she was facing affected many others as well.
“I thought it was just me struggling because of my specific situation,” Thorp said. “But in bringing up these concerns with my studiomates, I realized there were underlying structural issues and root causes that affected all of us differently and negatively, and that all of us individually, for our own reasons, felt unable to speak up about it.”
Following continuous dialogue among the Studio Art majors, Thorp wrote an email to capstone faculty and Studio Art Chair Kristina Paabus. She outlined the main concerns that had been in discussion: ineffective communication of individual and group issues to faculty, lack of communication between faculty teaching different sections of the capstone, inefficient structure of full-class critiques, and issues regarding accessibility and accommodations. In the email, Thorp proposed an in-person meeting between the Studio Art faculty and a small group of senior majors that would represent the interests of the class.
This meeting was successfully held on March 13, attended by four students and five faculty members. Among these faculty were Kielwagen, Paabus, Assistant Professor of Studio Art Ling-lin Ku, Visiting Assistant Professor of Integrated Media Eileen Maxson, and Professor of Studio Art and Photography Pipo Nguyen-Duy. Thorp reflected on the outcomes of this conversation.
“At worst, it was a bit tense, and there were some misunderstandings, but in general, they expressed to me very clearly that they are extremely interested in what we have to say,” she said. “They are apologetic about the way things have been and that it has progressed in this way. Their general consensus was they thought this structure, or lack of structure, was giving us freedom and exposing us to different ideas, but we made it clear that that was not how it was working in practice, and we instead felt like we were abandoned.”
One of the main structural concerns was regarding full-class critiques that are held during midterms and near the end of the semester. All seniors and capstone faculty gather to discuss each student’s work for 10 minutes at a time. Kielwagen empathized with students’ frustrations, acknowledging that the current structure can quickly lead to exhaustion as the three hours go by.
In addition to issues with the timing of the critiques, College fourth-year Vivian Bailey commented on the content discussed during these sessions.
“I felt like [the critiques] were very unproductive — both not critical enough and also too critical in the wrong ways,” she said. “They were missing every mark that I was hoping for them to hit. Honestly, most of it was being unhappy with the actual structure and the time spent talking about different things in different ways, as well as the time that students were allotted versus professors.”
College fourth-year Carys Bowen added that, with 30 students, it is nearly impossible to have a cohesive 10-minute conversation about a student’s work. After exploring alternatives to how critiques are currently run, half of the Studio Art class tried a “speed dating” style for the most recent critique.
“We ended up having a very good critique,” Bowen said. “Half of us stood with our work, and the other half circled around, and then we switched. And that was super beneficial. We could have one-on-one conversations, and I felt like I got so much more feedback on my art in that one meeting than I had in half of last semester. It was just so much better because it was an actual crit. It wasn’t just speaking at each other.”
Another conflict that students grappled with was the lack of productivity that they felt the 7–10 p.m. studio time promoted. For Bowen, working during this time often clashed with her ability to get a restful night’s sleep.
“It means Tuesdays and Thursdays, I’m fighting to keep myself functioning,” she wrote in an email to the Review. “So I think if I could make one change to my own capstone experience, it would be having daytime classes instead of night classes.”
Students have also expressed discontent with the lack of structure during studio time. While faculty felt that this was the best approach to giving students freedom with their creative process, some students wished for more guidance. However, Nguyen-Duy noted that students desired the opposite just a few years ago.
“In the past, usually before class time, we would meet for half an hour … before students dispersed to go into their studios and work,” he said. “But there were complaints like, ‘Half an hour is so wasteful. I wish I could be in my studio working.’ So we adjusted, and now it’s like, ‘I wish there was an opportunity for us to meet at least at the beginning of the class.’”
With a class size of 30 that is projected to continue growing, faculty have expressed that it is difficult to land on a structure that everyone will be satisfied with. However, with increased dialogue, students are already noticing positive changes.
“Since Camille met with the department, I’m noticing more of an effort to be communicative, which is really great,” Bailey said. “I know all of these professors as people, and they’re wonderful people. They’re very kind, and it makes sense that they’re responding well to this.”
In addition to rethinking the structure of critiques, the Studio Art department has responded to students’ interest in building community by starting a new initiative called ARTea: Studio Art Major Tuesday Traveling Tea, a series of gatherings for students and faculty to connect in different studio and art spaces. The next meeting, held on April 14, will be Seltzers in The Arb for Darya Tsymbalyuk’s visiting artist workshop.
Nguyen-Duy emphasized the department’s willingness to continue working with students to improve their Studio Art experiences.
“We care for our students a lot,” Nguyen-Duy said. “So when I heard [about these concerns,] I felt like, ‘Oh, man, okay, we need to step in, even though we are so out of gas because we love these students so much.’”
Kielwagen explained that many of the concerns that students have brought up regarding the capstone sequence are due to the department managing a rapidly growing class size in conjunction with the search for tenure-track faculty.
“The department is growing, but it’s also going through an intense restructuring moment,” Kielwagen said. “So, rethinking the capstone sequence is part of that.”
