Mount Allison, Yukon School of Visual Arts enter new transfer agreement

SACKVILLE, NB & DAWSON CITY, YT: Mount Allison University and the Yukon School of Visual Arts have announced a new partnership for Fine Arts students. 

Students in the Yukon School of Visual Arts Foundation Year program can now apply to Mount Allison’s Bachelor of Fine Arts program with advanced standing, enabling them to complete both a Visual Arts certificate and Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in four years.

“As the first Canadian university to offer a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in the visual arts, Mount Allison has a long and established history in Fine Arts education and training,” says Dr. Jeff Ollerhead, Mount Allison provost and vice-president, academic and research. “We are pleased to partner with the Yukon School of Visual Arts and look forward to welcoming Foundation Year students to our BFA program through this new pathway agreement.”

“Sackville and Dawson City share so many similarities, and there is already a steady and welcome migration of artists between these two kindred places. Therefore it makes so much sense to have an agreement with Mount Allison, and we are excited to provide our students with another excellent option for continuing on to complete their BFAs, especially in a town that will already feel like home,” said Aubyn O’Grady, program director, Yukon School of Visual Arts.

Mount Allison provides a well-established approach for BFA students looking to obtain professional training – combining studio work and instruction with an immersive liberal arts and sciences curriculum. Graduates of the program work in a number of fields including as practising artists, museum and curatorial professionals, and art educators.

The University is also home to the Owens Art Gallery, the oldest University art gallery in Canada, the province’s only paintings Conservation Lab, and the Colville House and Studio, a campus resource dedicated to the life of renowned Canadian artist and Mount Allison graduate and professor, the late Alex Colville. In 2018, Mount Allison introduced a new degree minor option — museum and curatorial studies — the first of its kind in Atlantic Canada among undergraduate programs.

The Yukon School of Visual Arts (SOVA) offers students a rigorous eight-month Foundation Year Program equivalent to the first year of a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree. Upon completing the Foundation Year Program, SOVA graduates may elect to transfer directly into the second year of a BFA at a number of SOVA- affiliated Canadian art schools.

World-renowned faculty, small class sizes, custom designed studio spaces, and a vibrant arts community support fully- accredited undergraduate level program. SOVA is a collaboration between Yukon College, the Dawson City Arts Society and the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation. Students who successfully complete all 10 courses will graduate from SOVA with a Visual Arts certificate issued by Yukon College.

More information on this new transfer agreement between the two schools is available at: mta.ca/pathways/.

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