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Apply research and creativity to spark individual and societal change.

Transform individuals and communities through creativity, scholarship, and collaboration. Enhance your practice and become a leader in expressive therapies through this low-residency doctoral program, which interweaves artistic expression and inquiry with a focus on research. Join with Lesley’s world-recognized faculty and other committed professionals to expand the theory and practice of expressive therapies, exploring new opportunities for research and global impact.

Lesley University’s doctoral program in expressive therapies provides you with the opportunity for in-depth study, artistic growth, and professional development regardless of your arts therapy specialization.

Guided by your own interests and experience, you’ll conduct relevant research and contribute new scholarship to the field. Whether you’re looking to further your career in higher education or become a leader in an arts therapy discipline, our program is designed to help you meet your goals.

The low-residency model provides a convenient format that allows you to expand your knowledge base in expressive therapies, while accommodating your work schedule and personal life. Complete a 2-week on-campus residency for three summers. During the residency, you’ll meet with your faculty advisor, attend seminars and classes, design research projects, and collaborate with other doctoral students. Between residencies, continue your work from home while staying connected with your faculty advisor and peers via online class sessions.

Program Structure

Low-Residency Doctoral Program

• To enroll in this program, you’ll need to show proof of: - An earned master's degree from a regionally accredited institution. - Certification or registration in one of the expressive therapies modalities (art therapy, dance therapy, drama therapy, expressive arts therapy, music therapy, play therapy, poetry therapy, or psychodrama). - Demonstration of good communication skills in the English language, both written and oral, at a level appropriate to doctoral study. - Demonstration of satisfactory performance on the GRE or the MAT examination. The Lesley University CEEB number is 3483 for the GRE and 1214 for the MAT. - A minimum of 3-5 years of professional experience as an expressive therapist.
• - Shifting Power Paradigms in Research - Arts Based Research I - Philosophical Foundations of Expressive Therapies - Critical Inquiry I - Research: Quantitative I - Research: Qualitative I
• - Critical Inquiry II - Research II - Research II: Qualitative II - Literature Review - Research II: Quantitative II - Arts Based Research II
• - Interdisciplinary Seminar - Leadership in Expressive Therapies - Professional Seminar
• Complete and defend your dissertation during your final years of study.

Low-Residency Format

Participate in one 2-week summer residency on Lesley University’s Cambridge campus for the first 3 years of your program. Between residencies, continue your studies online with Lesley faculty, devoting significant weekly time toward doctoral study. Your final years are dedicated to off-site, independent work on your dissertation with support from your faculty advisors. 

Innovators in the Field

Established over 40 years ago, we were the first graduate program in the U.S. to train professionals in this emerging field. Today our program is the largest of its kind and remains at the forefront of innovation. Our reputation and outstanding faculty—all practitioners in the arts—are what attract students from around the world.

Myriam Savage ’15

Expressive arts therapy can treat:.

How Creative Expression Can Benefit Older Adults

Mitchell kossak receives 'shining star' award.

Cambridge, MA

A nexus for higher education and mental health counseling practice and research, each year 250,000 students arrive to Cambridge from around the globe. The intellectual and cultural capital runs deep, and so do your opportunities addressing barriers to wellness. From Lesley’s location, access innovative community, hospital, and school-based mental health programs.

• Mental Health Therapist
• Music Therapist
• Art Therapist
• Drama Therapist
• Creative Therapist
• Dance/Movement Therapist
• Expressive Arts Therapist
• Universities and Colleges
• Mental Health Clinics
• Psychiatric Clinics
• Assisted Living Facilities
• Correctional Facilities

Professor of Expressive Therapies

Dr. Robyn Cruz’s clinical work has spanned populations such as adults with serious and persistent mental illnesses and children and adolescents with trauma and substance abuse issues. Her doctoral degree is in Educational Psychology with a specialization in Measurement and Methodology. She has worked as a research methodologist and research consultant, taught doctoral students since 1995, and has taught graduate courses in dance therapy, research methods, and statistics to students from many disciplines in the US, Europe, and South America.

Her courses reflect her interests in creative arts therapies research that uses the broad range of available methods and particularly, incorporating research thinking and resources into creative arts therapies clinical practices. Her teaching philosophy and practice are grounded in a professional collaboration model that reflects skills honed by teaching statistics to doctoral students from many disciplines at the University of Arizona. She uses a model based on the fact that students learn least from an instructor's oral recitation of information and most from engaging the subject matter themselves.

Robyn believes that policy and leadership go hand-in-hand with creative arts therapies and are important for the continued development and viability of these professions. She has devoted years of service to the University and to the Creative Arts Therapies community at large. She served as Co-Chair for the Lesley University Institutional Review Board from 2012-2021, and as IRB member from 2005 to the present. She was featured in the Lesley University 2012 Annual Report.

She is a past President of the American Dance Therapy Association (ADTA), serving four years as Vice President and four years as President of the organization. In these capacities she regularly visited Washington, DC to speak with lawmakers about creative arts therapies with respect to access for clients and licensing. As ADTA President, she introduced the Multicultural and Diversity Committee to the ADTA Board of Directors. This was the first new standing committee created in the organization in over 25 years.

Robyn also brought the Dance/Movement Therapy Certification Board, a separate credentialing body for dance therapy, and new credentials (R-DMT and BC-DMT) into existence during her presidency, creating new professional opportunities and oversight for professional dance therapists. She is a former editor of American Journal of Dance Therapy, and served as Editor-in-Chief of The Arts in Psychotherapy from 2002 to 2015. She is past Chairperson of the National Coalition for Creative Arts Therapies Associations.  

Michele Forinash

Professor, Director of the PhD in Expressive Therapies

Dr. Forinash is Professor and Director of the PhD program in Expressive Therapies at Lesley University. A graduate of Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia, Dr. Forinash completed her master’s and doctorate at New York University. She is a past president of the American Music Therapy Association and a past chair of the National Coalition of Creative Arts Therapies (NCCATA). She has published articles and chapters on qualitative research, supervision, feminist music therapy, and LGBTQ awareness and has presented internationally on these topics. For ten years she served as the North American Co-Editor for the online international music therapy journal Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy ( www.voices.no ). She is also an associated supervisor for the doctoral program in music therapy at Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark.

Jason Frydman

Associate Professor, Expressive Therapies

Jason S. Frydman, PhD, RCT/BCT, NCSP is associate professor of expressive therapies at Lesley University where he teaches in the doctoral expressive therapies program and co-chairs the university's institutional review board. He is a registered drama therapist/board certified trainer with the North American Drama Therapy Association, a nationally certified school psychologist with the National Association of School Psychologists, and licensed psychologist (GA). Dr. Frydman is the founder and lead researcher of the Collaborative for Creative Arts Therapies in Schools (C-CATIS), based at Lesley. He serves as the associate editor for general topics for Translational Issues in Psychological Science and sits on the editorial boards of Drama Therapy Review and School Psychology Review. Research interests include creative arts therapies in schools, research issues in the creative arts therapies, mental health literacy, and school-based trauma-informed practices. He has served as NADTA conference co-chair, communications chair, and is immediate-past research chair. He is an invited and initial member of the Mental Health Literacy Collaborative and served on the advisory board for the Foundation for Jewish Camping.

Professional service

Jason is active in professional service, including

• Co-chair of the North American Drama Therapy Association Conference (2012)
• North American Drama Therapy Association Communications Chair (2012-2015) and Research Chair (2019-2021)
• Guest co-editor of the Drama Therapy Review (DTR) special issue: Drama Therapy in the Schools (5.1)
• Current editorial boards include the Drama Therapy Review, School Psychology Review , and Translational Issues in Psychological Science

Mitchell Kossak

Professor/Coordinator of Expressive Therapies

Dr. Mitchell Kossak , LMHC, REAT is a professor in the Department of Graduate Expressive Therapies at Lesley University. He served as Department Chair from 2006 to 2013. He was the President and Executive Co-Chair for the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA) 2010-2016. He has been a licensed mental health counselor, since 1994, and is a Registered Expressive Arts Therapist (REAT).

He is the Associate Editor of the Journal of Applied Arts and Health and Co-Chair of the Institute for Arts and Health at Lesley University. His clinical work combines expressive arts therapies with body-centered approaches with a variety of populations addressing issues such as chronic pain, recovery from trauma, depression, anxiety, life transitions and relationships. In addition he has worked extensively with autistic children and adults. Mitchell has trained in a variety of mind body modalities including Polarity Therapy, Craniosacral Therapy, Deep Tissue Massage and Bioenergetics. In Expressive Arts Therapies he has training in music therapy, experimental theater, psychodrama, and authentic movement. He studied Sound Healing with innovators in the field of sacred sound and transformation of consciousness, such as Dr. John Beaulieu author of Music and Sound in the Healing Arts and Silvia Nakkach director of the Vox Mundi Project. In addition to this training, he has studied and practiced energy based healing forms such as Tai Chi, Chi Kung, Vipassana meditation, and Iyengar yoga for over 30 years. He earned his doctorate from the Union Institute and University in interdisciplinary studies with a concentration in Expressive Arts Therapy and transpersonal psychology. He has written about and presented his research on rhythmic attunement, improvisation, psychospiritual and community-based approaches to working with trauma and embodied states of consciousness at conferences nationally and internationally. He is the author of Attunement in Expressive Arts Therapy:  Toward an Understanding of Embodied Empathy. He is the Associate Editor of The Journal of Applied Arts and Health and Co-Chair of the Institute for Arts and Health at Lesley University. 

Mitchell Kossak is also a professional musician, performing for the past 30 years in the Boston area.

Kelvin Ramirez

Associate Professor/Coordinator of Art Therapy

Dr. Kelvin Ramirez is a Board Certified Registered Art Therapist (ATR-BC) and core faculty member of the Department of Graduate Expressive Therapies . Kelvin is a Board Member of FNE International, a 501(c)3 organization that partners with communities in developing nations to identify opportunities to advance housing, health and education. With that international experience, Kelvin continues to collaborate and develops programs with educators, clinicians, and community leaders in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and India. He has developed academic curriculum that build and reinforce initiatives in Nicaragua, The Dominican Republic, Haiti and India.

Prior to joining Lesley, Kelvin was the vice principal of a high school in the South Bronx where he developed and incorporated art therapy within educational systems to enhance student’s personal and academic growth. During his 9-year tenure as vice principal, art therapy was infused throughout the academic and therapeutic approaches of the school, increasing retention and shifting behavioral approaches to enhance students' socio-emotional development.

Kelvin has taught for the Counseling Division at the College of New Rochelle and the Clinical Art Therapy Program at Long Island University C.W. Post.

His current areas of interest and research include:

• The development of international art therapy initiatives that conform to the specific needs of communities
• Contemporary social justice issues
• How art therapy addresses or ignores systemic oppression
• The underrepresentation of people of color within the field of art therapy and the implications of this on theory and practice
• The connections between horticultural therapy and art therapy to transform communities

Teaching is important to Kelvin, because it is through this act of service that people are prepared to direct their destinies and author their own stories. It is a profession that entrusts educators with the malleable minds of the future. Kelvin holds fast to the unwavering ideals that brought him to education, including that social injustices can only be remedied by an educated populous, that an educated mind is a mind called into action for the betterment of all human kind, and that through educating our future generations, our positive influence on the world will continue long after we expire.

Jason Butler

Professor of Drama Therapy, Department Chair of Graduate Expressive Therapies

Dr. Jason D. Butler  is a Registered Drama Therapist, Board Certified Trainer, and New York State Licensed Creative Arts Therapist. Jason is a former President of the North American Drama Therapy Association (NADTA) and previously served on the NADTA Board of Directors as President-Elect and Communications Chair. He is the editor-in-chief for  The Arts in Psychotherapy and the former training director for DvT Montreal, a satellite of the Institute for Developmental Transformations.

Prior to joining Lesley University, Jason was a professor in Creative Arts Therapy at Montreal's Concordia University, serving for a portion of that time as the graduate program director for drama therapy and a member of the Arts in Health Research Collective.   Jason is an internationally known drama therapist, having presented on drama therapy in many countries, including the Czech Republic, China, Hong Kong, South Africa, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. He has served as an adjunct faculty member at Lesley University and at New York University and was one of the first recipients of the NADTA Teaching Excellence Award in 2012. 

Prior to being a full-time professor, Jason was the director of Goddard Riverside Community Center’s The Other Place, a psycho-social program and drop-in center for homelessness and mental illness in New York City. Prior to finding drama therapy, he was a high school theatre teacher. His publications include articles and book chapters on drama therapy education, arts therapies pedagogy, schizophrenia, developmental transformations, and role theory. His current research includes an exploration of the drama therapy student experience as well as the application of drama therapy theory to experiential learning.

• Low-Residency
• Tuition $1,200/credit x 45 $54,000
• Fees PhD Matriculation Fees $12,000 Comprehensive Fee $1,125

All graduate students are reviewed for merit scholarships through the admissions process and are awarded at the time of acceptance. Other forms of  financial aid  are also available. Review all  graduate tuition and fees , and what they cover. Tuition and fees are subject to change each year, effective in the Summer term.

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MPhil/PhD at UCA

MPhil/PhD at UCA at UCA

A PhD is an advanced postgraduate qualification that will require you to plan and complete your own focused investigation into a subject you have chosen, and produce a piece of original research that contributes new knowledge to the academic community.

As a research student at UCA, you’ll have the option to choose a traditional or practice-based route for your studies. Whichever you choose, you’ll develop an original written thesis, and practice-based candidates will need to produce accompanying creative work. 

To find out more about research degrees at UCA, please see our Research Degrees information:

Research Degrees at UCA

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Creative Arts Therapy

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Art Therapy at Pratt

Creative, aesthetic, and psychotherapeutic theory come together in everything we do. Artwork is done in every course and is used to learn a range of therapeutic skills. Experiential processes translate the theoretical framework into personal and practical application. You’ll focus on a variety of populations over the course of two years of clinical training.

The Experience

The MPS in Art Therapy and Creativity Development is a 60-credit program for students who want a diverse skill set, balanced with a strong theoretical framework. Interdisciplinary, socially engaged, and justice-driven, our Creative Arts Therapy community is connected by a shared mission for transformative change. Pratt’s Art Therapy program can be completed in 4 semesters of full-time study. All courses are offered on the Pratt Brooklyn campus.

Internships

We believe creative and clinical practices are best developed together, each informing and improving the other. Internships are a vital part of the hallmark experiential learning process. Much of the coursework draws directly from clinical experiences and processing of client material. Students complete internship experiences in an array of site placements, including inpatient hospitals, community mental health agencies, and school-based settings, among others.

The mission of the Creative Arts Therapy Department at Pratt Institute is to provide the highest level of clinical training in art and dance/movement therapy, preparing graduates to work effectively with people from diverse communities. Our unique teaching philosophy is based on a combination of personal experience, didactic learning, and practical application, and is rooted in the primacy of creative process and psychodynamic theory. We offer an integration of historical perspectives and current andragogy, leading to applications of practice in a variety of settings. The program combines the power of non-verbal communication, artistic process, and embodied creative action. Our students develop self-awareness and recognition of their unique attributes through experiential learning. They acquire an increased sense of self and resiliency, which is translated to their work as creative arts therapists.

Student Learning Outcomes

• Students will be able to identify and utilize their own internal processes in service of therapeutic interventions.
• Students will comprehend and apply creative and aesthetic processes in the context of creative arts therapy theory and practice.
• Students will be able to establish a therapeutic relationship using imagery, movement, symbolization, and verbalization; and recognize shifts within that developing relationship.
• Students will be able to demonstrate knowledge of psychodynamic theory within the context of creative arts therapy practice in the service of diagnosis, treatment, and ongoing evaluation.
• Students will be able to articulate clinical theory and applied practice through writing, research, oral presentation, and professional advocacy across broad interdisciplinary communities.  
• Students will be able to apply ethical and professional codes of practice as they apply to clinical practices, communities, and self.
• Students will be able to understand the intersectionality of power, privilege, and oppression as they apply to clinical practices, communities and self.

Our Faculty

Alongside their teaching roles, our faculty are accomplished artists who integrate creative and clinical practices every day in their work. See all Creative Arts Therapy faculty and administrators .

Students in Action

Impacts of Baking as Art Therapy on Stress and Anxiety in Adults

Connection in Isolation

Success Stories

Using Art and Dance to Promote Healing in Internships at Rikers Island and Providence House

Prattfolio Story

The Art of Holding

Educating for the Future: Creative Arts Therapy Chair Julie Miller

How We Lead: Drena Fagen, MPS Art Therapy ’02, and Nadia Jenefsky, MPS Art Therapy ’99

Ready for more.

Join us at Pratt. Learn more about admissions requirements, plan your visit, talk to a counselor, and start your application. .	You’ll find yourself at home at Pratt. Learn more about our residence halls, student organizations, athletics, gallery exhibitions, events, the amazing City of New York and our Brooklyn neighborhood communities. .

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From the Catalog

Sample courses.

• ADT-630 Clinical Diagnosis, Assessment and Treatment 3 credits
• ADT-632 Research and Thesis 3 credits
• ADT-635 Art Therapy Open Studio 3 credits
• ADT-640 Development Of Personality I 3 credits
• ADT-641 Creative Arts Therapy I 3 credits

Program Overview

The program’s structure.

Both the MPS in Art Therapy and Creativity Development and MS in Dance/Movement Therapy Master’s are 60-credit programs providing a synthesis of creative, aesthetic, and psychotherapeutic theory. Courses offer a thorough theoretical framework that is translated into personal and practical application through an experiential process. Artwork and/or movement is done in every course and is used to learn therapeutic skills. Students focus on a wide variety of populations and are required to work with a different population for each of the two years of fieldwork/internship/practicum. Both programs are for students who want a broad body of skills, balanced with a strong theoretical framework. 

ACADEMIC-YEAR FORMAT

The academic year format offers classes in a traditional manner, with classes in fall and spring semesters, for 15 weeks each semester.  The cycle of classes is as follows: students take courses and fieldwork/practicum/internship from September through May for two consecutive years.  Students in the low residency format are admitted for the spring semester only.

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Creative Arts Therapy Counseling

• Graduate Programs

Be Licensure Ready in as Little as Two Years

Begin a rewarding career in art therapy with the CAAHEP-accredited Master of Arts (MA) in Creative Arts Therapy Counseling at Hofstra University. Our program features new and refined courses in ethics, diversity, aging and development, career counseling, and experiential learning, including a first-year practicum. Hofstra prepares you for licensure in New York State as a Creative Arts Therapist and as a registered and board-certified Art Therapist. Attend full-time and finish in as little as two years or attend part-time and complete the program in three years. No GRE is required, and scholarships are available for qualified candidates.

Request Info

I am interested in learning more about Hofstra’s MA in Creative Arts Therapy Counseling.

Program Highlights

Expert Faculty

CAAHEP Accredited

Diverse Electives

Real-World Experience

Exceptional Location

Competitive Tuition

Program details.

• REQUIREMENTS

Visit the Hofstra campus or connect with the graduate admission team. We will answer your questions and put you in touch with program faculty or degree candidates to learn more. Contact us at [email protected] , or call 516-463-4723.

To be considered for the MA in Creative Arts Therapy Counseling program, you must have completed an undergraduate degree from an accredited institution. You must demonstrate competency in art by presenting slides, original artwork, or a CD presentation; have 18 semester hours minimum in studio art, including drawing, painting, and 3D art; and 12 semester hours in psychology, including developmental and abnormal.

Start your application online where you can upload the following documents:

• Transcripts from all previously attended colleges and universities. You may initially submit unofficial copies of your transcripts for your application review, but official transcripts will be required once you are accepted into the program.
• Three letters of recommendation .
• Personal statement describing your professional intent and pertinent background.
• Personal interview with the program director.

Visit the creative arts therapy counseling program page to learn more.

The preferred application deadline for the fall semester is August 15 and for the spring semester is January 15. All others will be reviewed based on available space.

The MA in Creative Arts Therapy Counseling is awarded to students who successfully complete 60 hours of coursework.

Deepen your education by getting involved in professional art therapy and related organizations, including:

• American Art Therapy Association (AATA)
• Art Therapy Credential Board (ATCB)
• Global Alliance for Arts and Health
• International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA)
• Global Art Therapy Resources
• Creativity and Madness
• Art Therapy : Journal of the American Art Therapy Association
• The Arts in Psychotherapy
• Arts & Health
• The Canadian Art Therapy Association Journal
• Journal of Creativity in Mental Health
• Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts
• School Counseling and Mental Health Counseling
• Marriage and Family Therapy
• Rehabilitation Counseling

Faculty Profiles

Morgan gaydos.

Morgan Gaydos, MA, LCAT, ATR-BC, serves as the Program Director for the graduate Creative Arts Therapy Counseling program at Hofstra University, in addition to teaching as an Adjunct Assistant Professor. Ms. Gaydos currently practices clinical art therapy on an inpatient child and adolescent behavioral health unit with a foundation in psychodynamic theories and mindfulness.

Deborah L. Elkis-Abuhoff

Dr. Deborah Elkis-Abuhoff, Associate Professor of Counseling and Mental Health Professions, holds both psychology and creative arts therapy licenses in New York state. Her research interests bring together behavioral medicine and creative arts therapy/medical art therapy, allowing her to bring diverse, up-to-date information to students. Her recent research includes the use of clay manipulation with individuals diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

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Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Creative and Performing Arts

Undertake a phd in creative and performing arts.

Gain expertise in a specialised area of creativity

Pursue an advanced research project in an area of drama, screen, digital media, or creative writing and engage in innovative creative practices that expand our experience and knowledge of the cultural and social world.

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Master of Arts (Research)

Duration: 2 years

Delivery mode: In person

Location: Bedford Park

CRICOS code:  106282D

Annual fees: 2025: $38,100

Further information on fees listed

Doctor of Philosophy (Arts)

Duration: 4 years

Delivery mode: In Person

CRICOS code:  106265E

Why undertake a PhD in Creative and Performing Arts

• Gain expertise in a specialised area of creativity and become an international expert in your topic
• Make a difference to the world. Your research has the potential to improve people’s lives through a better understanding of individual experience and how creative arts adds value to our society
• Explore a fascinating research question that no one has answered before. You will have the opportunity to fill a gap in current knowledge or answer a previously unresolved issue in your field

Your career

A PhD gained in Creative or Performing Arts at Flinders provides a wide range of skills valued in all types of organisations and careers. It will enhance your creative practice, analytical and communication skills, provide you with skills to quickly learn new concepts and adapt to change, and enhance your time management, organisation and resilience skills.

A PhD is a stepping stone to a career as an artist, a professional researcher in the public sector, think tanks, charities, universities, and private corporations. Individuals with PhDs in creative or performing arts are highly sought after for various professions in public and private organisations and have found roles in writing, the public service, consulting, advising, teaching and publishing.

Potential occupations include:

• consultant or adviser
• professional researcher.

Potential employers include:

• arts organisations
• performing and creative arts companies
• museums and galleries
• publishing companies
• media production companies
• universities
• think tanks
• public sector.

Potential research supervisors

Flinders Creative and Performing Arts academic staff include several award-winning writers, and are recognised as leaders in their fields both in Australia and globally for their theoretical and practice-led research. Our academic supervisors draw on their extensive knowledge and exciting research in the areas of creative writing, theatre production, drama and screen critical studies.

Learn what to prepare before approaching a potential research supervisor.

Ready to find the perfect supervisor for your research journey?

Explore Research @ Flinders.

Creative Writing

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For queries relating specifically to a project, direct your enquiry to the  College where you plan to study.

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Art and creative practices PhD

The University of Brighton is a creative and intellectually vibrant focus for a PhD in art and creative practices.

The School of Art and Media in Brighton has a long history of internationally-recognised work, has been a pioneer of practice-based and inter-disciplinary methods, and joins with other disciplinary areas to offer expert supervision.  

Past successes in PhD in Art and Creative Practices at the University of Brighton include PhDs in the areas of fine art, illustration, graphic design, visual communication, photography and film, digital and interactive arts, 3D design and craft, fashion and textiles, design and communication, drawing on the staff of different schools and sharing a creative vision and ethos that permeates the whole university.

Apply to 'Arts' on our PhD portal

Apply with us for funding through the AHRC Techne Doctoral Training Partnership

Key information

As an Art and Creative Practices PhD student, you will benefit from

• a supervisory team comprising 2-3 members of academic staff. Depending on your research specialism you may also have an additional external supervisor from another school, research institution, or industry
• access to and induction to research approaches from a variety of related fields, including social science, environmental science, media, design and the humanities
• access to a range of electronic resources via the university’s Online Library, as well as to the physical book and journal collections housed within the university libraries
• a range of colleagues using arts practices for research investigation, including a regular presentation day of research in these fields
• various spaces and facilities for exhibition and public engagement.

Academic environment

Our research and enterprise has, at its heart, an engagement with making and critical thinking that brings together creative inquiry, experimentation with material, process and technology with theory and critical writing. It provides new ways of understanding creative processes that offer insights into cultural and human emotion, thought and action.

Research activities within Art and Creative Practices include the production of innovative artefacts, both digital and physical, design, craft, inclusive practices, exhibitions, installation and performance, as well as creative writing, published texts, books and journal articles. Characterised by a blend of scholarship, knowledge exchange, traditional and cutting-edge practices, our research has been influential in collaborative developments with diverse communities and partners locally, nationally and internationally. It is our belief that knowledge generated through the development of creative and critical practice enhances and shapes every aspect of our contemporary culture and future lives.

We promote research excellence and support individual and collaborative research initiatives that through productive enterprise networks help to enhance society’s understanding of human culture and creativity. 

We welcome applications for PhD study in which practice plays a central role, as well as those applications that bring elements of practice into a more traditional thesis submission. As a research student, you will part of a community of learning with active participation in a range of intellectual and social events. All PhD students working on arts-based topics are integrated into the university’s wider research culture and we will provide you with opportunities to present ‘work in progress’ and network with other researchers.

Research themes in Art and Creative Practices

Researchers within the School of Art and Media are engaged in arts practice work across a wide range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary areas and, along with specialists in the history and theory of art, design, literature, creative writing and autoethnography from the School of Humanities and Social Science, and wider engagement with schools specialising across the sciences, we encourage interdisciplinary projects and cross-disciplinary engagements. Our particular areas of specialism currently include:

• artistic engagements with environment, memory, narrative,
• arts practices and science, health and wellbeing
• research into, through and with drawing
• inclusive arts practice and social contexts
• interactive digital arts and audience engagement
• networked media arts practices and interventions
• mediated performances, visions and the role of the body as site
• politics of representation, curatorship and exhibition making
• creative writing and autoethnography

Explore our Centres of Research and Enterprise Excellence:

• Centre for Arts and Wellbeing
• Centre for Design History

Some of our supervisory staff 

Gavin ambrose.

My supervisory interests lie in the development of new approaches to Graphic Design pedagogy. I have expertise in typography, printing, editorial design and graphic systems and conventions. I'm especially interested in the emergence of new approaches to the landscape of contemporary Graphic Design practice and how the role of the Graphic Design has shifted towards a bricoleur approach to contempory communication. Graphic Design is a pervasive subject that is integrated in our daily lives, but arguably the subject of little critical enquiry. An emerging research community and unified research clustering is beginning to address this shortfall, and Doctorate Level study will help to further this body of knowledge.

I am interested in supervising on enquries into:

• Graphic Design practice, both as an act of creation but also as a force for change;

• The changing topography of the Graphic Design landscape, and the changes to the 'role' of the graphic Designer as a contemporary communicator and creator;

• Shifts in typographic practice and relationships of Graphic Design to the broader influences of social and economic factors including globalisation and homogenisation;

• The role of communication as an emerging research practice;

• Self regulation and ‘rule’ or convention generation with in the industry;

• The role of ‘play’ and ‘failure’ in design Graphic Design practice, and in particular how these actions are navigated and understood by learners and educators;

• The emergence of alternative, less formal approaches to education and the role of the ‘Art School’ in this developing landscape.

Dr Martin Bouette

My work investigates the role of entrepreneurship in the development of creative careers as a business owner and researcher. This has included investigating the gap between education and employment for creative practitioners as well as exploring models of learning to support entrepreneurial development.

Current and recent PhD students:

Claire Dawson - An exploration for clothing reuse in the circular economy (2023 -  present)

Martin Irorere -  Sustainability in making material innovation in textiles, for the circular model in the fashion industry (2021 - 2023) 

Erika Wong – Art World Hegemony and Access: Competing Perspectives on the Value of The Creative Class (2016 – 2020) Brighton University

Veerapong Klangpremjit – Interactive Packaging Development (2014 – 2020) University for the Creative Arts

Akapan Thienthaworn – Design Management in UK and Thai SMEs (2011 – 2019) University for the Creative Arts (completed)

Amy Cunningham

My supervisory interests include fine art, video, multi-media installation, sound, voice, performance, site-specific art and cultural histories of technology.

Dr Jules Findley

Postgraduate supervision in Textiles, Fashion, Fashion Communication, Drawing, encompassing embodied materiality, my work in handmade paper and practice-based, installation art. More recently,  substantial research as co-investigator with an AHRC project in sustainabile materials in Fashion and Textiles. I am interested in waste in the Fashion, Textiles, Accessories and Leather industries, together with materials, circular economy, reuse and repurposing.  

Recent PhD supervision:

University of Brighton - Claire Dawson - Research Title: 'Clothing Reuse in the Circular Econonmy: An exploration of the challenges and opportuniteis for UK high street fashion brands' - [March 2023 - July 2029]

University of Brighton - Martin Irorere - Research Title: 'Closing the Fashion Sustainability Gap through textile Recycling: Evaluation of UK Gen-Z consumer attitudes, knowledge, and acceptance of textile recycling'. - [March 2021 - July 2026]

Anglia Ruskin University - Amanda Lavis - Research Title: 'Woven Language: A practice-based research investigation Exploring the Textile Praxis in Children's Book Illustration' [March 2021 - expected completion 2025]

External PhD Viva examination experience, University of Chester October 2020 - Georgina Spry -  'A New Felt Presence: Making and Learning as part of a Community of Women Feltmakers' 

Doctoral student supervision and examination

Meaningfully Engaged? Exploring the particpatory arts practices of adults with profound and multiplul learning disabilities (PMLD)  PhD Thesis by Melaneia Warwick completed in 2018

External examiner, Royal Holloway, Janyne Lloyd, PhD thesis title The Role of Reminiscence Arts in the Lives of Care Home Residents Living with Dementia 2016

Dr Charlotte Gould

My PhD supervisory interests are in Digital Media Arts and Visual Communication. My specific research interests cover interactive storytelling, augmented reality, digital and tangible media,  open interaction, play, participation, immersive environments, virtual reality and 360 video, audience agency and sustainability.

Dr Ole Hagen

In addition to fine art practice, I'm interested in consciousness studies, philosophy of mind, ontology and religious stuies such as Buddhist philosophy. My own PhD covered continental thought, such as phenomenology, poststructuralism, Derrida and Deleuze, but also philosophy of science.

Dr Asa Johannesson

I am interested in supervising PhD and MRes students in the following areas: feminist photographic practices and theories, queer methodologies, queer photographic practices and theories, queer activism and representation, new materialism, posthumanism, photography and ontology, non-dialectical contemporary philosophy, process-led photographic research. 

Dr Helen Johnson

Helen supervises PhD and MD students with an interest in arts-based interventions in healthcare, education and wellbeing, and/or the use of creative, arts-based research methods.  She is interested in talking to doctoral applicants who are interested in researching creativity and the arts, with foci including: art therapy; arts interventions for health and wellbeing, including invisible chronic and contested conditions; social prescribing; creativity and the lived experience of dementia; arts education; spoken word and poetry slam; art worlds/communities; arts inclusivity; everyday creativity; and the artistic process.   She is also interested in supervising students who wish to work with creative, arts-based and/or participatory methods, including: poetic inquiry; autoethnography; photo voice; photo elicitation; collaborative poetics; and participatory action research.  Helen currently supervises four doctoral candidates, who are researching: the lived experiences of women with borderline personality disorder (including creative coping strategies); neurologic music therapy with young people with juvenile dementia; black people's experiences of intimacy and psychosis; and decolonial praxis in museum learning.  She has previously supervised and examined work covering topics that include: perceptions of frailty in the undergraduate medical curriculum; the impact of austerity policies on homeless people; spoken word with young offenders in a Macedonian prison; the performance and perception of authenticity in contemporary UK spoken word poetry; and NHS staff experiences of work. 

Dr Uschi Klein

Dr Uschi Klein is interested in supervising PhDs in the broad areas of photographic histories and practices, visual and material culture, resistance politics, cultural memory and marginalised communities. She is especially but not exclusively interested in supervising research projects that focus on the lived experience of Eastern European totalitarian systems.

Dr Jayne Lloyd

Jayne is interested supervising practice-based PhD research into collaborative or participatory arts practices with marginalised groups, arts in health and social care settings, arts-research and arts practices located in both gallery and community settings.

Dr Philippa Lyon

My main supervisory interests are in the understanding and applications of drawing in clinical settings, the use of drawing as a tool of learning, approaches to arts/health research, the relationship between drawing and writing and creative/visual research methods.

I am currently supervising:

Vanessa Marr (PhD, School of Art and Media) with Jessica Moriarty;  

Caehryn Tinker (PhD, School of Art and Media) with Heidi von Kurthy and Kay Aranda;

James Murray (PhD, School of Art and Media) with Gavin Fry and Duncan Bullen;

Lindsay Sekulowicz (AHRC Collaborative Doctorate, School of Humanities and Social Science) with Claire Wintle at Brighton, William Milliken and Mark Nesbitt at Kew Gardens and Luciana Martins at Birkbeck;

Muna Al-Jawad (PhD by Publication) with Jayne Lloyd;

Duncan Bullen (PhD by Publication).

I worked for a 3 year period as a learning mentor for a PhD student in the School of Art and Media. They completed successfully in February 2024.

I have supervised 4 PhD students to completion: Dr Simon Bliss, Jewellery, Silver and the Applied and Decorative Arts in the Culture of Modernism, 2019; Dr Gavin Fry, Male textile artists in 1980s Britain: a practice based inquiry into their reasons for using this medium, 2018; Dr Curie Scott, Elucidating perceptions of ageing through participatory drawing: a phenomenographic approach, 2018; Dr Sarah Haybittle, Correspondence, trace and the landscape of narrative: a visual, verbal and literary dialectic, 2015.

I have been an independent chair for two PhD examinations (Andrew Cross and Ada Hao) and have examined seven PhDs: Mingyi Wang, University of Brighton, 2023 (internal examiner); Jane Shepard, University of Brighton, 2022 (internal examiner); Melissa Cheung, University of Sydney, Australia, 2019 (external examiner); Louisa Buck, University of Brighton, 2018 (internal examiner); Samantha Lynch, University of Brighton, 2018 (internal examiner); Mike Sadd, University of Brighton, August 2015 (internal examiner); Tanja Golja, University of Technology Sydney, Australia, January 2012 (external examiner).

I've acted as internal examiner for three MRes students: Claire Scanlon, 2019; Diana Brighouse, 2015; and Mark Lander, 2014.

I have also been an independent reader for MPhil/PhD transfers and Annual Progression Review reader for 5 students.

Dr Simon McEnnis

Dr McEnnis is interested in postgraduate supervision in journalism and media studies. He is particularly keen on projects that explore professional and citizen journalism, digital and social media practice, blogging and influencer culture, media analysis, sports journalism or sports media. 

Roderick Mills

My supervisory interests cover the emerging areas of Illustration as an expanded field of practice including GIFs, animation, and the burgeoning self-publishing scene, through to traditional forms of graphic storytelling. I am interested in enquiries into situated illustration, both in terms of site specific work and ethnographic approaches, to how illustrators can use technology to go beyond the printed page. The importance of drawing as means of enquiry is another interest alongside performative aspects of live transcriptions and the use of workshops to engage with communities.

Dr Jessica Moriarty

One of my key passions is working with PhD students on creative practice, autoethnography and creative writing pedagogy. I have supported doctoral students working on transdisciplinary projects and work that seeks to challenge conventional academic discourse. At the moment, I am honoured to be working with students who are looking at queering the colonial, creativity and Bronte, Santiago de Cuba as moving archive, diverse narratives from Brexit, feminist romance, autoethnographic arts-based work, stories from care, autoethno-drag, identity and hybridity in fiction, and queer bodies in performance.

Xavier Ribas

Xavier Ribas is interested in developing postgraduate research in the following areas: contested sites and histories, legacies of colonialism, border territories, geographies of extraction, environmentalism, climate justice, art and activism. 

Dr Naomi Salaman

Contemporary art 

Contemporary art and feminist perspectives

The history of vision

The Art School; art education; art theory.

Prof Paul Sermon

My research and supervisory interests cover Fine Art, Digital Media, Performance and Visual Communications related subjects. Since joining the University of Brighton in 2013 I have taken on six PhD students as their lead supervisor, with completions in May 2016, March 2018 and April 2019. These PhD students have been undertaking practice-based research in a range of specific areas such as digital storytelling, interactive media, virtual reality and networked performance art. In my role as a PhD supervisor and Postgraduate Research Coordinator in the School of Art I bring our PhD students together through collaborative workshops, symposia and exhibitions, such as the group PhD show ‘Digital Encounters’ for the British Science Festival, Brighton in September 2017. I have had six PhD completions as lead supervisor to date, as well as two external completions and I continue to gain PhD Viva experience, with over thirteen PhD external examiner appointments.

For further supervisory staff including cross-disciplinary options, please visit research staff on our research website.  

Making an application

You will apply to the University of Brighton through our online application portal. When you do, you will require a research proposal, references, a personal statement and a record of your education.

You will be asked whether you have discussed your research proposal and your suitability for doctoral study with a member of the University of Brighton staff. We recommend that all applications are made with the collaboration of at least one potential supervisor. Approaches to potential supervisors can be made directly through the details available online. If you are unsure, please do contact the Doctoral College for advice.

Please visit our How to apply for a PhD page for detailed information.

Sign in to our online application portal to begin.

Fees and funding

 Funding

Undertaking research study will require university fees as well as support for your research activities and plans for subsistence during full or part-time study.

Funding sources include self-funding, funding by an employer or industrial partners; there are competitive funding opportunities available in most disciplines through, for example, our own university studentships or national (UK) research councils. International students may have options from either their home-based research funding organisations or may be eligible for some UK funds.

Learn more about the funding opportunities available to you.

Tuition fees academic year 2024–25

Standard fees are listed below, but may vary depending on subject area. Some subject areas may charge bench fees/consumables; this will be decided as part of any offer made. Fees for UK and international/EU students on full-time and part-time courses are likely to incur a small inflation rise each year of a research programme.

MPhil/PhD

	£4,786	£2,393
	£15,900	N/A
	£14,500	N/A

PhD by Publication

N/A	£2,393

Contact Brighton Doctoral College

To contact the Doctoral College at the University of Brighton we request an email in the first instance. Please visit our contact the Brighton Doctoral College page .

For supervisory contact, please see individual profile pages.

Design and Creative Arts

Qualification(s) available: phd.

We have a thriving doctoral research community made up of full-time and part-time UK, EU, and international students. Through the impact of our research we strive to make a substantive contribution to academia, society, and the economy.

Studying for a doctorate offers a unique opportunity for self-discovery and personal growth. As a doctoral researcher, you will be responsible for managing your own schedule and developing your own ideas and approach, while being supported every step of the way.

The aim of a PhD is to make a novel contribution to knowledge and to discover something that no-one else has done before. You may have already identified the research area which interests you, in which case you will need to see if this is something we specialise in.

100% of research impact in Art and Design rated 'world-leading' or 'internationally excellent'

Our research

Our research stretches across a broad spectrum of expertise spanning Design, Creative Arts and Human Factors, and is characterised by transdisciplinary and collaborative working within the School, across the wider University, and alongside industry specialists.

Creative Arts

Our Theatre research is both practical and theoretical, and we strongly believe that these two elements ideally co-exist creatively and rigorously to generate new knowledge that simultaneously examines the text and the stage, context and embodied interpretation.

Fine Art research means innovation and engagement, on a national and international stage. Recently completed projects engage with diverse digital and analogue technologies, craft processes, drawing research and history from all many different chronological periods.

We are committed to understanding and progressing textile design research and practice through both practice-led and theoretical approaches, particularly within collaborative and interdisciplinary working contexts.

Animation and Drawing

The focus is on what drawing does, rather than what drawing is. Our core aim is to continue to facilitate an internationally recognised collaborative and supportive space for the generation and dissemination of drawing research.

Storytelling

We have been involved in over 25 projects of various sizes, ranging from a few thousand pounds to over a million pounds in value, funded by organisations as diverse as AHRC, NERC, ESRC, MRC, EPSRC, the British Academy and the European Commission.

Responsible Design

We aim to achieve balanced social, environmental and economic development by embedding ethical decision-making in inclusive and sustainable design practice. Our research into Responsible Design brings world-leading expertise to the development of theory and practice.

Digital Design and Fabrication

The Digital Design and Fabrication (DDF) Lab has a strong focus on advanced 3D technologies including 3D scanning, Computer-Aided Design, 3D Printing, Additive Manufacturing and Hybrid-Additive Manufacturing as well as exploring other digital fabrication processes.

Design for Future Living

We are a collective of researchers across design and creative arts who are concerned with the design of future ways of living. From homes, workplaces, public places and spaces, we work in trans-disciplinary ways across a wide range of domains including health and wellbeing, mobility, and energy.

Graphic Design

Graphic design research at Loughborough is driven by a group of international scholars who explore the ways graphic images and graphic systems function across a broad spectrum of communication contexts in the twenty-first century.

Design Practice

Excellence in the creative practice of graphic, industrial/product and textile design is embedded in the culture of our School. This extends to externally funded research projects in which the distinctive nature of creative design practice is employed in data collection and dissemination to increase understanding, effectiveness and address global challenges.

Human Factors

Environmental ergonomics.

The Environmental Ergonomics Research Centre has two main focus areas. The first is the interaction of people with their physical environment with respect to heat, cold, thermal comfort, clothing, work, and performance. The second focus area is healthcare ergonomics, covering a wide range of topics related to the healthcare system, patient safety and quality care.

Transport Safety

We strive to improve safety of transport users through research expertise in human factors, engineering, psychology, medicine and health sciences, education and social science. As a University Centre of Excellence, the Transport Safety Research Centre (TSRC) is recognised for its research quality and impact.

Design Ergonomics

We specialise in research, design and evaluation of physical product interactions with people. Since the early 2000s we have pioneered research into product design and the optimisation of products to accommodate the size, shape, needs and desires of people.

Complex Systems

We address the interactions between people, products, technologies, services, procedures, policies and culture which, when combined, form complex socio-technical systems. We regularly work with industrial partners across a wide range of sectors including the nuclear industry, construction, the NHS, the food industry, transportation and other safety critical industries.

Current opportunities

Most of our current PhD opportunities already have a specified topic and allocated supervisor, but we also encourage you to submit your own proposal.

Our researchers

Zelal Basodan

Doctoral researcher.

Zelal is a Saudi emerging ceramic artist who is currently undertaking a practice-based research aiming to contribute culturally and technically towards a hybrid Contemporary Islamic Ceramics.

Lars Claußen

Lars is a trained textile engineer who is currently conducting a PhD in collaboration with Adidas. His research focuses on sportswear, testing methods, quality perception, and sustainability.

Jiayin Guan

Jiayin's research explores what motivates and prevents older adults from being active. The goal is to support older adults to proactively participate in physical activity, so that a sustained behaviour can be formed.

Your development

Doctoral researchers will have the support of two supervisors who will provide expert guidance during your PhD.. The Director of Doctoral Programmes can provide additional guidance and pastoral support, as can other academic staff as appropriate.

You will join a lively community of researchers and staff, becoming an integral part of the school’s research culture. Conference and symposia attendance is encouraged and these activities are partially supported by a dedicated fund, open to all doctoral researchers.

PhD students also enjoy close interaction and collaboration with academic staff - pre-eminent researchers who are well regarded within their respective fields and active in research, publishing and academia.

The  Doctoral College  at Loughborough provides additional support for research students, including a range of training programmes aimed specifically at PhD students. We also provide regular research seminars and training courses, opportunities to support undergraduate teaching, special tutor sessions in your first year, and student led initiatives to provide support throughout your studies.

Where you'll study

The School of Design and Creative Arts is home to a huge array of world-class facilities that boast industry-standard tools, machinery and equipment, plus inspirational teaching, learning, and studio spaces.

Entry requirements

Our entry requirements are listed using standard UK undergraduate degree classifications i.e. first-class honours, upper second-class honours and lower second-class honours. To learn the equivalent for your country, please choose it from the drop-down below.

Entry requirements for United Kingdom

A minimum of a 2:1 honours degree (or equivalent international qualification) in a related subject.

Afghanistan

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Masters	95%	85%	70%

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Diplomë e Nivelit të Pare (First Level (University) Diploma (from 2010)	9.5	8.5	8

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Licence (4 year) / Diplome d'Inginieur d'Etat / Diplôme d'Etudes Supérieures	16	14	12

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Licenciatura/ Licenciado (4 year)	8.5	7.5	6.0

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Bakalavri Kochum required but typically a Magistrosi Kochum	90% or 3.9	80% or 3.5	70% or 3.0

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Honours degree (AQF level 8)	First Class, 80%	Upper Second, 70%, H2A	Lower Second, 60%, 2B
Ordinary degree - AQF Level 7 pass (mark 46 or 50)	High Distinction (80% or 85%)	Distinction (75% or 80%)	Distinction (70% or 75%)

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Degree/ Diplomstudium / Magister degree	A (or 1.5) mit Auszeichnungbestanden	60% or B or 3.0 (or 2)	50% or C or 2.7 (or 3)

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Bakalavr Diplomu/ Diplomu (Specialist Diploma)	4.5 or 90%	4 or 80%	3.5 or 70%

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Degree from University of the West Indies only	1st (GPA 3.6)	2:1 (GPA 3.0)	2:2 (GPA 2.5)

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
GPA 4.0 scale	3.5	3.0	2.8

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
4 year Bachelor of Science in Engineering (IEB and BAETE accredited courses only)	1st (70%) / 3.5	2nd (60%) / 3.0	2nd (55%) / 2.75
Masters (1-2 years) following a 3 or 4 year degree	80% / 4.0	65% / 3.25	50% / 2.5

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
University of the West Indies, Honours degree	1st (GPA 3.6)	2:1 (GPA 3.0)	2:2 (GPA 2.5)
Barbados Community College	1st or GPA 3.75	2:1 or GPA 3.5	2:2 or GPA 3.0

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Specialist Diploma (5Yr)	9	7	5

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Bachelor degree/Licenciaat/Licencie	80% or 17	70% or 14	60% or 12

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Degree from University of the West Indies only	1st (GPA 3.6)	2:1 (GPA 3.0)	2:2 (GPA 2.5)

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Maitrise	18	15 or Bien	12 or Assez Bien

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
A Licenciado, 4 years Private (public/private)	85/78	75/66	67/55

Bosnia and Herzegovina

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Diploma Visokog Obrazovanja / Diplomirani	10	9	8

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Master's degree	A or 80%	B or 70%	C or 60%

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Brazil - 4 yr Bacharel or Licenciado/Licenciatura or Título Profissional	8.5	7.5	6.5

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Brunei	First	Upper Second (60%/B/3.1)	Lower Second (50%/C/2.7)

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
5 yr Diploma za Zavarsheno Visshe Obrazovanie (Diploma of Completed Higher Education)	6	5	4

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Masters or Diplôme d'Études Approfondies or Diplôme Ingénieur (professional title)	18	15/20 (Bien)	12.5/20 (Assez Bien)

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Masters	80% or B+ or 3.5	70% or B or 3.0	60% or C+ or 2.5

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Bachelor degree or Diplome d'Etudes Superiures de Commerce or Diplome d'Ingenieur or Diplôme d'Ingénieur de Conception or a Maitrise or a 4-year Licence.	1st or 15/20 or GPA 3.7	2:1 or 14/20 or Bien (GPA 3.4)	2:2 or 12.5/20 or Assez Bien (GPA 3.1)

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
GPA 4.0/Percentage	3.7/85%	3.3/75%	2.7/68%
Out of 9	8	6	5
Out of 12	10	8	6

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Grado de Licenciado / Título (Profesional) de [subject area] (4 years)	6	5.5	5

Students are required to have a bachelor degree (4 years) for entry to a postgraduate programme. The University uses the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities to identify the required final mark, as outlined on the table below:

	First class (70%)	Mid 2:1 (65%)	2:1 (60%)	Mid 2:2 (55%)	2:2 (50%)
Shanghai Rank Top 250	83%	79%	75%	73%	70%
Shanghai Rank 251-500	88%	84%	80%	78%	75%
Shanghai Rank 501+	92%	87%	84%	82%	80%

Affiliated colleges

The University will consider students from Affiliated Colleges in the following way:

Applicants from colleges affiliated to universities in the top 250 Shanghai rankings will be considered if they have achieved or are likely to achieve final marks of 75%-84%.

Applicants from colleges affiliated to universities which are 251-500 in the Shanghai rankings will be considered if they have achieved or are likely to achieve final marks of 80%-87%.

Applicants from colleges affiliated to universities which are above 500 in the Shanghai rankings will be considered as follows:

• School of Business and Economics: not considered
• All other programmes if they have achieved or are likely to achieve final marks of 80%-87%.

Universities given special consideration

Applicants from a small number of Chinese universities that specialise in business, management, finance or creative arts will be given special consideration by the University. The full list of these universities and the Shanghai band under which they will be considered can be found below:

Beijing Film Academy	北京电影学院	Top 250
Capital University of Physical Education and Sports*	首都体育学院	Top 250
Central Academy of Drama	中央戏剧学院	Top 250
Central Academy for Fine Arts	中央美术学院	Top 250
Central Conservatory of Music	中央音乐学院	Top 250
China Academy of Art	中国美术学院	Top 250
China Conservatory of Music	中国音乐学院	Top 250
Guangzhou Sport University*	广州体育学院	251-500
Harbin University of Finance (Harbin Finance University)	哈尔滨金融学院	251-500
Northwest University of Political Science and Law	西北政法大学	Top 250
Shanghai Customs College	上海海关学院	Top 250
Tianjin Sport University*	天津体育学院	Top 250

‌*Special consideration for programmes in School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences and Institute for Sport Business only.

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Licenciado / Título de [subject area]	4.5	3.75	3.2

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Licenciado	9	8 or 80	7 or 75

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Baccalaureus / Prvostupnik	4.5	3.8	3.0

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
4-year Titulo de Licenciado / Licenciatura	5	4	3

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Cyprus	8.5	7.0	6.5

Czech Republic

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Bakalár (after 2001) 6 yr integrated Magistr	1	1.5	2

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
5 year Candidatus/Candidata Magisterii or Bachelor degree (7 point scale)	12	10	7

Dominican Republic

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
4 year Licenciado or Título de [subject area]	3.8	Magna Cum Laude or 3.5 or 85%	Cum Laude or 3.2 or 82%

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Título de Licenciado / Título de [subject area]	8.5 / 85%	8 / 80%	7 / 70%

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Egypt	3.5	3.2	2.8
Universities only	BA 90%, BSc 85%	BA 80%, BSc 75%	BA 65%, BSc 65%

El Salvador

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
5 year Licenciado, Título de Ingeniero/Arquitecto	8.5, 85%	7.5, 75% or Muy Bueno	6.5, 65% or Bueno

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Bakalaureusekraad or Magister or Magistrikraad	5 or A	4 or B	3 or C

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Master's	A/GPA 4.0	A/GPA 3.5	B/GPA 2.8

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Kandidaattii/Kandidat or the Maisteri/Magister	3 (out of 3) or 4.5 (out of 5)	2 (out of 3) or 3 (out of 5)	1 (out of 3) or 2.5 (out of 5)

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Licence (3 years)/ Maitrise/ Diplôme d'Ingénieur	14	13	11

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
4-year degree (% = new system)	5 (95%)	4.5 (85%)	4 (75%)

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
German Bachelor/ Diplom, Magister Artium / Zeugnis über den Zweiten Abschnitt der Ärztlichen Prüfung	1.5	2.5	3.0

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Ghana	First	Upper second/60%	Lower second/50%

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Universities	8.5	7.0	6
TEI and non-University Institutions	8.5	7	6.5

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Degree from University of West Indies - classification	1st	2:1	2:2
Degree from University of West Indies - grade / percentage	A	B / 75%	C / 55%
Degree from University of West Indies - GPA	3.6	3.0	2.0

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Liceniado / Titulo de (subject area) - 4 years	90% (public university) / 95% (private university)	80% (public university) / 85% (private university)	60% (public university) / 70% (private university)

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Master's	GPA 4	GPA 3.5	3.0

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Título de Licenciado / Grado Académico de Licenciatura (4 year degree) - GPA out of 5	GPA 5 or 90%	GPA 4 or 80%	GPA 3.5 or 70%

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
GPA 4.0 scale	3.5	3.0	2.5

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Alapfokozt or Egyetemi Oklevel / Bachelor	5	4	3

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Baccalaurreatus degree or Kandidatsprof/Candidatus Mag	8.5	7.5	6.5

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Institutions listed on the	65% (First)	60% (First)	55% (Upper second)
All other Indian institutions	70% (First with distinction)	65% (First)	60% (First)

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Sarjana I (S1) from accredited Universities	3.3	3.0	2.8

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Iran	17	15	13

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Iraq	80%	75%	70%

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Republic of Ireland	First (70%)	Upper second (60%)	Lower second (50%)

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
3 yr Bachelor Degree	90%	80%	70%

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Diploma di Laurea	109/110	104/110 (or 27)	100/110 (or 26)

Myanmar (Burma)

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
2 year Master's degree	5 or 85%	5 or 75%	4.5 or 65%

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Honours degree (post 2008) or Masters	80% or A	70% or B	60% or C

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Master's (after 3 year bachelor degree)	90% or 3.9 GPA	80% or 3.8 GPA	65% or 3.3 GPA

Netherlands

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Netherlands	8	7	6

New Zealand

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
4 Year Honours degree (480 credits) - Level 8	First (7.0)	Upper Second (6.0)	Lower Second (4.0)
3 Year degree (360 credits) - Level 7	A+ (9.0)	A- (7.0)	B+ (6.0)

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Licenciatura (4 year)	90%	80%	70%

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
7 point Scale	6	5	4
5 point scale	4.5	3.8	3.5
4 point scale	3.5	3	2.5

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Norway	A	B	C

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
4 Year degree only (the higher of the 2 options)	A- or GPA 3.7	B or GPA 3.0	C+ or GPA 2.6
2 or 3 year Bachelor plus Masters	1st (60%) plus GPA 3.7	2nd (55%) plus GPA 3.0	2nd (50%) plus GPA 2.6

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Bachelor Degree	A / 90% / 3.7	B+ / 85% / 3.3	B / 80% / 3.0

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
4 Year Licenciado / Título de [subject area]	91 (A)	81 (B)	71 (C)

Papua New Guinea

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Bachelor (Honours) Degree	1st	2:1	2:2

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
4 Year Título de Licenciado / Título de [subject area]	4.5 (85%)	4 (80%)	3.5 (75%)

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
4 Year Título de Licenciado / Título de [subject area]	14	13	12

Philippines

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Degree from prestigious state universities or Centres of Excellence (COE)	Summa Cum Laude 4.0 / 96% / 1.0	Magna cum Laude 3.5 / 92% / 1.5	Cum Laude 3.0 / 87%/ 2.0

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Bachelor Degree (post 2003) Magister (pre- 2003)	5	4.5 / 4+	4

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Diploma de Estudos Superiores Especializados (DESE) or Licenciado	18	16	14

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Diploma de Licenta/ Diploma de Inginer	9	8	7

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Bakalavr/Specialist Diploma/Magistr	4.5	4.0	3.5

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
4 year bachelor (Hons) degree (480 credits)	1st, 16/20 (80%)	2:1,14/20 (70%)	2:2, 12/20 (60%)

Saudi Arabia

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
GPA 4.0 scale	3.5	3.0	2.8
GPA 5.0 scale	4.5	3.75	3.5

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Maitrise, Diplome d'Etude Approfondies, Diplome d'Etude Superieures or Diplome d'Etude Superieures Specialisees	16/20 or Tres Bien	14/20 or Bien	12/20 or Assez Bien

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Diplomirani/ Bachelor's degree	9	8	7

Sierra Leone

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Honours degree or masters	1st (70%)	2:1 (60% or B)	2:2 (50% or C)

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Classification	First	Upper second	Lower second
GPA 4.0 scale	3.7	3.0	2.7
GPA 5.0 scale	4.5	3.5	3.0

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Bakalár (from 2005) Magister / Inzinier	1.5 or B	2.0 or C	2.5 or C/high D

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
University Diplom	9.5	8.5	7

South Africa

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Bachelor (Honours) or B Tech after 4 yrs study	1st or 75%	2:1 or 70%	2:2 or 60%

South Korea

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
GPA out of 4.5	4.0 / A	3.5 / B	3.0 / C+
GPA out of 4.3	4.0 / A	3.0 / B	2.7 / C+

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Licenciado / Título de Ingeniero / Título de Arquitecto	8.5	7	6.5
UCM grading	3.0	2.0	1.5

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
4 year Professional degree or Bachelor Special or Honours degree	90%, GPA 3.70	80%, GPA 3.30	70%, GPA 3.0

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
4 year degree	1st, 70%, B+	2:1, 66%	mid 2:2, 60%, B

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Kandidatexamen or Magisterexamen	Overall grade of VG with a minimum of 120 credits at VG	B or Overall grade of VG with a minimum of 90 credits at VG	C or Overall grade of G with a minimum of 90 credits at G

Trinidad and Tobago

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
For degrees studied at The University of West Indies or degrees accredited by ACTT	1st or B+ or 70%	2:1 or B or 65%	2:2 or B- or 60%

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Licence, Maîtrise, Diplôme National d'Ingénieu	16 (tres bien)	14 (bien)	11 (assez bien)

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Lisans Diplomasi or a Műhendis Diplomasi	3.5	3	2.5

Turkmenistan

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
4 Yr Bakalavr, Specialist Diploma or Magistr	5	4.5	4

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Uganda	1st or 4.4	2:1 or 3.8	2:2 or 3.0

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Dyplom Magistra or a Bachelors degree (11 / 5)	4.5	4.0	3.5

United Arab Emirates

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
GPA 4.0 scale	3.5	3.0	2.6

United States of America

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
GPA 4.0 scale	3.5	3.2	2.8

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Licenciado (4 year)	10	9	8

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Bakalavr Diplomi / Diplomi (Specialist Diploma)	90% or GPA 4.5	80% or GPA 4.0	70% or GPA 3.0

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Licenciado/Professional title. (4 year)	18/20 or 8/9	16/20 or 7/9	14/20 or 6/9

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
10-point scale	8.0	7.0	6.0
4-point scale	3.5	3.0	2.8

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
Master's	A or 4.0 or 80%	B+, 3.5 or 70%	B or 3.0 or 60%

	First-class honours (70%)	Upper second-class honours (60%)	Lower second-class honours (50%)
3/4 year degree	1st or 75%	2:1 or 65%	2:2 or 60%

English language requirements

Applicants must meet the minimum English language requirements. Further details are available on the International website .

Fees and funding

Tuition fees for 2024-25 entry.

£4,786 Full-time degree per annum

International fee

£27,500 Full-time degree per annum

2024-25 tuition fees are applicable to projects starting in October 2024, January 2025, April 2025 and July 2025.

Tuition fees cover the cost of your teaching, assessment and operating University facilities such as the library, IT equipment and other support services. University fees and charges can be paid in advance and there are several methods of payment, including online payments and payment by instalment. Fees are reviewed annually and are likely to increase to take into account inflationary pressures.

International fees for research degrees can vary from depending on the topic.

How to apply

We welcome applications in any of the areas listed on this page and encourage prospective students to explore the research activity of our staff and to contact appropriate staff directly for advice before submitting an application.

Applicants will be required to submit a research proposal (approx. 2,000 words) with a provisional title and timetable. Practice-based students will be required to submit a portfolio in PDF format or as a weblink.

The School of Design and Creative Arts welcomes and encourages PhD applicants who reflect a diversity of race and nationality, religion or belief, gender identity, sex, sexual orientation, age, disability. Applications from black, Asian and ethnic minorities are particularly encouraged by the School (and University) to study for a PhD.

You can find more information on the application process including where to apply on the dedicated webpage.

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PhD Creative Arts

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School of study	School of Creative Arts

The minimum requirement is an honours degree (normally at least 2:1 or above) in an appropriate discipline, but a postgraduate qualification in a relevant subject area is also desirable. IELTS entry requirement is normally a minimum of 6.5 or equivalent for overseas students, but a higher score is desirable.

About the course

A University of Hertfordshire PhD degree is an internationally recognised research degree signifying very high levels of achievement in research, and an original contribution to knowledge in the student’s chosen field.

In the School of Creative Arts, a PhD may be undertaken in 3 years (full-time) or 6 years (part-time) in any creative arts discipline that the School engages with, and for which we have appropriately qualified supervisory staff.  We have a wide range of expertise in historical and theoretical research, as well as in practice-led/practice-based research, relating to the fine and applied arts, film, media and TV studies, interior and architecture design, music and the music industry.

During the period of PhD study you will develop extensive subject expertise and independent research skills, which are honed over an extended period of time. You will undertake a substantial self-directed research project for the duration of the degree, in negotiation with two or more academic members of staff, who are your supervisors.  In addition, you will also engage with a negotiated programme of selected generic skills development and careers workshops provided by the University of Hertfordshire Doctoral College, as well as discipline-specific research training provided by the School. 

Your proposed PhD project may be purely theoretical or practice-led/practice-based. If there is a practice element in your project, one of your supervisors will be a practitioner in an appropriate discipline, and appropriate studio space and/or workshop facilities will be made available if necessary. The School has a wide range of outstanding facilities for researchers in the broad area of creative arts, and the University library has an excellent range of relevant and up-to-date resources to support research in this area.

During the course of the degree, you would typically be expected to present your research at internal and external seminars and conferences, and to exhibit your practical work if it is part of the research project. Some opportunities in this regard may be provided by the School and/or the University. 

How to Apply 

Before making your formal application, we recommend that you discuss your proposed research with the School’s Research Tutor, Dr Laura Mee (see below under Key Staff for contact details).  

For details of how to apply please contact  [email protected]  .

When applying, please include an outline research proposal of around 1000-2000 words.

How to write a research degree proposal   

Teaching methods

Research degrees are not taught programmes, however, programmes of supporting studies are a key element.

PhD study in the School of Creative Arts requires regular attendance on campus, so this degree cannot normally be undertaken online from your home country, unlike the Professional Doctorates in Fine Art (DFA) and Design (DDes) . 

The School of Creative Arts has a lively research community staffed by supervisors whose research is world leading, Supervisory teams provide guidance in helping you to formulate and develop your research during the course of the programme. A minimum of 3 full-team supervisions per academic year is mandatory for full-time students (pro-rata for part-time students) but typically meetings with the full team and with individual supervisors is more frequent.

We offer a range of subject specific research training throughout various research group seminars. Our research students are strongly encouraged to participate in modules in our taught Masters programmes, and the University also has an extensive Researcher Development Programme, which is provided by the UH Doctoral College and offers generic research training.

The PhD in the School of Creative Arts has three main assessment points after enrolment: Initial registration for the degree after 8 months (for both full-time and part-time students); the doctoral progression after 18 months for full-time and pro-rata for part time students, and the final examination.

Your research project will be examined on the basis of the final submission, which may include a combination of both written and non-textual material that must be "defended" in a viva and contain a thesis (a position that can be defended by substantiated argument), and a clearly stated original contribution to knowledge in the field.

Course experts

Dr Laura Mee Find out more about Dr Laura Mee

What’s next for my career?

• An internationally recognised research qualification.
• Develop advanced subject expertise at postgraduate level.
• Develop research skills through practice and extensive research experience.
• Employers are looking for high calibre graduates with advanced skills who can demonstrate independent, creative thinking and problem-solving through research.

Start Date	End Date	Year	Location	Link
01/10/2024	31/07/2025	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/11/2024	31/07/2025	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/12/2024	31/07/2025	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/01/2025	31/07/2025	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/02/2025	31/07/2025	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/03/2025	31/07/2025	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/04/2025	31/07/2025	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/05/2025	31/07/2025	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/06/2025	31/07/2025	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/07/2025	31/07/2025	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/10/2024	31/07/2025	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/11/2024	31/07/2025	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/12/2024	31/07/2025	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/01/2025	31/07/2025	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/02/2025	31/07/2025	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/03/2025	31/07/2025	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/04/2025	31/07/2025	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/05/2025	31/07/2025	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/06/2025	31/07/2025	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/07/2025	31/07/2025	1	UH Hatfield Campus

Start Date	End Date	Year	Location	Link
01/08/2025	31/07/2026	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/09/2025	31/07/2026	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/10/2025	31/07/2026	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/11/2025	31/07/2026	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/12/2025	31/07/2026	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/01/2026	31/07/2026	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/02/2026	31/07/2026	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/03/2026	31/07/2026	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/04/2026	31/07/2026	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/05/2026	31/07/2026	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/06/2026	31/07/2026	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/07/2026	31/07/2026	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/08/2025	31/07/2026	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/09/2025	31/07/2026	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/10/2025	31/07/2026	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/11/2025	31/07/2026	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/12/2025	31/07/2026	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/01/2026	31/07/2026	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/02/2026	31/07/2026	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/03/2026	31/07/2026	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/04/2026	31/07/2026	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/05/2026	31/07/2026	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/06/2026	31/07/2026	1	UH Hatfield Campus
01/07/2026	31/07/2026	1	UH Hatfield Campus

Course fees

• Research degree fees for UK and EU students
• Research degree fees for international students

Want to know more about research degree fees? Find out what you need to know below:

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Admission Steps

English and literary arts - creative writing - phd, admission requirements.

Terms and Deadlines

Degree and GPA Requirements

Additional Standards for Non-Native English Speakers

Additional standards for international applicants.

For the 2025-2026 academic year

See 2024-2025 requirements instead

Fall 2025 quarter (beginning in September)

Final submission deadline: December 16, 2024

Final submission deadline: Applicants cannot submit applications after the final submission deadline.

Degrees and GPA Requirements

Bachelors degree: All graduate applicants must hold an earned baccalaureate from a regionally accredited college or university or the recognized equivalent from an international institution.

Masters degree: This program requires a masters degree as well as the baccalaureate.

University GPA requirement: The minimum grade point average for admission consideration for graduate study at the University of Denver must meet one of the following criteria:

A cumulative 2.5 on a 4.0 scale for the baccalaureate degree.

A cumulative 2.5 on a 4.0 scale for the last 60 semester credits or 90 quarter credits (approximately two years of work) for the baccalaureate degree.

An earned master’s degree or higher from a regionally accredited institution or the recognized equivalent from an international institution supersedes the minimum GPA requirement for the baccalaureate.

A cumulative GPA of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale for all graduate coursework completed for applicants who have not earned a master’s degree or higher.

Official scores from the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), International English Language Testing System (IELTS), C1 Advanced or Duolingo English Test are required of all graduate applicants, regardless of citizenship status, whose native language is not English or who have been educated in countries where English is not the native language. Your TOEFL/IELTS/C1 Advanced/Duolingo English Test scores are valid for two years from the test date.

The minimum TOEFL/IELTS/C1 Advanced/Duolingo English Test score requirements for this degree program are:

Minimum TOEFL Score (Internet-based test): 80

Minimum IELTS Score: 6.5

Minimum C1 Advanced Score: 176

Minimum Duolingo English Test Score: 115

Additional Information:

Read the English Language Proficiency policy for more details.

Read the Required Tests for GTA Eligibility policy for more details.

Per Student & Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) regulation, international applicants must meet all standards for admission before an I-20 or DS-2019 is issued, [per U.S. Federal Register: 8 CFR § 214.3(k)] or is academically eligible for admission and is admitted [per 22 C.F.R. §62]. Read the Additional Standards For International Applicants policy for more details.

Application Materials

Transcripts, letters of recommendation.

Required Essays and Statements

Writing Sample

We require a scanned copy of your transcripts from every college or university you have attended. Scanned copies must be clearly legible and sized to print on standard 8½-by-11-inch paper. Transcripts that do not show degrees awarded must also be accompanied by a scanned copy of the diploma or degree certificate. If your academic transcripts were issued in a language other than English, both the original documents and certified English translations are required.

Transcripts and proof of degree documents for postsecondary degrees earned from institutions outside of the United States will be released to a third-party international credential evaluator to assess U.S. education system equivalencies. Beginning July 2023, a non-refundable fee for this service will be required before the application is processed.

Upon admission to the University of Denver, official transcripts will be required from each institution attended.

Three (3) letters of recommendation are required.  Academic recommendations preferred.  Letters should be submitted by recommenders through the online application.

Essays and Statements

Essay instructions.

Applicants should submit a sample of critical prose (e.g., a seminar paper, scholarly publication, or excerpt from thesis or other longer work demonstrating familiarity with the conventions of academic research and writing) not to exceed 20 pages.

Personal Statement Instructions

Personal statements should be 2 pages maximum and should address the applicant's past academic experience, future scholarly goals, and their suitability for graduate study and research in our program.

Résumé Instructions

The résumé (or C.V.) should minimally include the applicant's educational history, work experience, academic experience (including research opportunities or presentations), selected publications, and/or volunteer work.

Writing Sample Instructions

Applicants must submit representative samples of creative work (for Prose, no more than 30 pages; for Poetry, 5 - 10 poems).

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M.A.-C.P. in Expressive Arts Therapy

Embracing the power of the arts for healing, growth, and social change.

In this Section

Program overview, 3 - 5 years, 60 (mft) or 69 (lpcc), our approach.

The Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology with a Concentration in Expressive Arts Therapy is a BBS-approved, part- or full-time low-residency degree program for California residents. The pedagogy provides an engaging online, hybrid curriculum that weaves multimodal expressive arts, such as visual and digital arts, music, dance and movement, poetry, spoken word, and drama, into all courses.

Our program utilizes the strength of the arts as implements for human development and healing, social change, and empowered self-agency. Our emancipatory perspective explores individual, group, couples, and family therapy practices.

The program works on the innovative Scholar-Artist-Practitioner model that focuses on uniting academic knowledge, clinical practice, and community engagement. Throughout the program students engage with peers and faculty in a collaborative, liberation-focused, arts-based environment. We place a premium on co-learning between students and faculty by creating opportunities for rich, playful, and diverse conversations and experiences.

Career Paths

CIIS’ Expressive Arts Therapy program integrates a rigorous education in theories and methods of psychotherapy with intensive training in expressive arts therapy and counseling psychology. 

• Schools and education-based settings
• Community mental health, arts, and social justice organizations
• Hospitals and residential treatment programs
• Consulting and coaching
• Private practice

The training for this program meets the educational requirements for California's Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT) license and California's Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC) license. This program is also designed to meet the educational requirements to become a Registered Expressive Arts Therapist (REAT) with the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA).

Hands-on learning through experiential coursework is emphasized. In the first and second years of study, students have the opportunity to integrate theoretical and expressive arts into practice through volunteering or incorporating these basic principles into their current job/vocation. Third year students engage in a year-long, supervised practicum, gaining direct client work experience. 

Classes are taught online in asynchronous and virtual synchronous formats. Students are expected to attend an in-person, one-week intensive that is held at the start of each fall and spring semester in the San Francisco Bay Area. Students work in clinical practice dyads and small groups to deliver collaborative assignments.

Intensive Arts-Based Seminar     Students, faculty, and advisors come together in residential seminars to engage in extensive, experiential, and intermodal arts-based learning. Up to a third of the coursework for the semester is completed in person, with the remaining coursework delivered in combined asynchronous, and occasional virtual synchronous learning formats to support clinical skill development.

Ongoing Arts Practice     Throughout the program, all students commit to ongoing engagement with new or existing arts practices. First semester courses allow students to employ modalities with which they are familiar, and provides exposure to new modalities as well. At the end of the first semester, each student outlines a practice plan that will promote their learning and preparation to become an expressive arts therapist. Plans are flexible and adaptive to respond to a student’s growth and changing needs over their time in the program. Expressive Arts Therapy courses offer frequent opportunities for art-making, response art, and arts-based inquiry through which students can apply their arts practices and experiment with new ones.

Students have the freedom to choose less formal, self-guided practices and/or those involving more structure, including guided training, presentations, publication, performances, and more. All costs and materials involved with a student’s individual arts practice are the sole responsibility of the student.

Personal Therapy Requirement

Students are required to complete 50 hours of personal psychotherapy with a licensed mental health professional (ideally an Expressive or Creative Arts Therapist).

License Ready

The Master’s in Counseling Psychology with a Concentration in Expressive Arts Therapy meets the educational requirements for MFT licensure in the state of California, and LPCC in the state of California with additional optional units. After graduation, students must complete a number of supervised client contact hours and pass the MFT licensing examination before becoming a Marriage and Family Therapist. This process takes, on average, 3 to 5 years post graduation.

Curriculum Highlights

EXA 5501 Psychotherapy Theories & Practice (3 units) This is an introduction to traditional and contemporary theories and practices of psychotherapy. We begin by situating the field in relation to its sociocultural, historical, and Indigenous roots. We go on to examine psychodynamic, Jungian, existential-humanistic, cognitive-behavioral, and collaborative approaches integrating feminist and multicultural perspectives, addressing intersections with the recovery model. Creative arts-based case examples for various approaches are woven into the fabric of the class.

EXA 6020 EXA & Trauma (3 units) This advanced-level class focuses on developing an understanding of what trauma is and how it functions on individual, community, and collective levels. You will critically explore theories and practical responses to the affective, cognitive, behavioral, neurological effects associated with trauma and crisis counseling. You will develop an advanced understanding of DSM definitions of trauma, differential diagnosis, and evidenced-based treatment strategies. You will additionally learn how to explore the ways that expressive arts and somatic psychotherapies can be effective as interventions in helping clients to recover from trauma.

MCPE 5606 & MCPE 6606 Family & Couples Dynamics I & II (3 units) This two-part course surveys a broad range of contemporary theories and practices within the field of family and couples therapy and their application in working with LGBT and heterosexual couple and family constellations across diverse cultures. You will be introduced to major contemporary approaches within the field, including structural, strategic, narrative, solution-focused, symbolic-experiential, EFT, and the Gottman Method. The course includes modules addressing issues related to blended families, interpersonal violence, migration stressors, divorce and separation, addiction, and illness. You will learn how to integrate the use of visual arts, music, movement, drama, and the language arts in family and couples therapy practice.

Hybrid MFT Track (60 units total)

Semester 1 | Fall

EXA 5501 Psychotherapy Theories and Practices (3 units)

EXA 6036 History and Foundations of EXA Therapy (2 units)

MCPE 6604 Multicultural Counseling and the Therapeutic Relationship (3 units)

EXAL 5602 Therapeutic Communication Lab (1 unit)

MCPE 5201 Human Development and the Family (3 units)

Semester 2 | Spring

EXA 6064 Psychological Assessment and Creative Arts Therapy (3 units)

EXA 6088 EXA Approaches: Module I (1 unit)

MCPE 5634 Group Dynamics and Therapy (3 units)

MCP 5108 Psychopathology & Psychological Assessment (3 units)

MCP 6106 Human Sexuality (1 unit) OR MCP 6102 Assessment and Treatment of Addiction Disorders (1 units)

Semester 3 | Fall

EXA 6089 EXA Approaches: Module II (1 unit)

MCPE 5606 Family & Couples Dynamics I (3 units)

MCPE 6403 Research Methods (3 units)

MCP 6502 Child Therapy (2 units)

MCP Intro to Community Mental Health & Recovery Model (2 units)

Semester 4 | Spring

MCP 5105 Professional Ethics and Family Law (2 units)

EXA 6055 The Arts in Therapy (3 units)

EXA 6618 EXA Approach: Narrative Expressive Arts and the Family (2 units)

MCPE 6606 Family & Couples Dynamics II (3 units)

MCP 6101 Human Sexuality (1 unit) OR MCP 6102 Assessment and Treatment of Addiction and Disorders (1 unit)

Semester 5 | Fall

MCPE 7604A Supervised Clinical Practicum Group (3 units)

EXA 5993 Expressive Arts Therapy Integrative Seminar I (1 unit)

EXA 6090 EXA Approaches Module III (1 unit)

EXA 6020 EXA & Trauma (3 units)

Semester 6 | Spring

MCPE 7604B Supervised Clinical Practicum Group (3 units)

EXA 5994 Expressive Arts Therapy Integrative Seminar II (2 units)

EXA 6853 Professional Development (1 units)

EXA 609 EXA Approaches Module IV (1 unit)

Entry Requirements

If you would like to learn more about this program, we’re here to help. Explore our program further with in-depth materials, discuss your personal and career goals at one of our open houses, or get in touch with our admissions counselors, who are ready to assist you in navigating the application process.

Online Admissions Application: Begin the application process by submitting an online application and paying the non-refundable $68 application fee.

Degree Requirement: An undergraduate degree (B.A., B.S., or B.F.A.) from an accredited college or university.

Minimum GPA: A GPA of 3.0 or higher in previous coursework is required. A GPA below 3.0 does not automatically disqualify an applicant. CIIS will consider a prospective student whose GPA is between 2.0 and 3.0. These individuals are required to submit a GPA Statement and are encouraged to contact the Office of Admissions to discuss their options.

Transcripts : Official transcripts from all accredited academic institutions attended where 7 or more credits have been earned. If transcripts are being mailed to CIIS, they must arrive in their official, sealed envelopes. Transcripts from institutions outside the US or Canada require a foreign credit evaluation through World Education Services (WES); CIIS will also accept foreign credential evaluations that are in a comprehensive course-by-course format from the current members of the National Association of Credential Evaluation Services (NACES) .

Short Essay Responses: Please write a series of brief responses, one for each of the following prompts in the order that they appear:

• Why are you interested in applying to CIIS specifically to study Expressive Arts Therapy? (350 words maximum)
• Describe the creative arts modalities you would bring with you into the Expressive Arts Therapy program. (350 word maximum)
• Please describe the direct human services experiences you have had in either employment  and/or through volunteering. (200 word maximum)
• What internal and external strengths and resources do you draw from to help you cope in your daily life? What social supports does this include? (200 word maximum)
• Our graduates are expected to be able to work with people from very diverse social, cultural, sexual/affectional preference, gender and socioeconomic backgrounds. What is your experience of relating across dimensions of difference? (200 word maximum)
• The low-residency program requires a high level of self-directed, autonomous work in addition to the ability to work in groups. Please describe your experience in: a.) working individually, and b.) working collaboratively in a group to meet a deadline. (200 word maximum)
• Due to the hybridized nature of our education delivery format, students must demonstrate the ability to work with/navigate online learning formats. Please describe a challenge you have encountered in working in an online learning environment and how you overcame (or imagine overcoming) the challenge. (200 word maximum)

Two Letters of Recommendation: Letters of recommendation will be accepted from academic advisors, professors, professional supervisors, or someone able to attest to your ability to undertake the work required for your program. Recommenders should use standard business format and include full contact information - name, email, phone number, and mailing address. 

Academic Writing Sample: A five-page sample of a piece of your academic writing (typed, double-spaced) that demonstrates your capacity to think critically and reflectively and demonstrates graduate-level writing abilities. You may submit copies of previous work, such as a recent academic paper, article, or report that reflects scholarly abilities. The selected sample must be five consecutive pages. A sample that uses outside sources must include proper citations. Please include the reference pages from this writing sample. (The reference pages are not included in the five-page limit.)

A Current Curriculum Vitae detailing your educational and professional experience.

Have the arts ever helped you through an emotional or life crisis? Have you ever used activities such as creative writing, painting, pottery, singing, dancing, or improvisational acting to feel a greater sense of aliveness? Are you looking for a career where you can integrate your passion for the arts with your desire for personal, relational, and systemic healing and social change?

At CIIS, we encourage you to combine academic rigor with personal experience to craft your own identities as Expressive Arts Therapists.

• Malchiodi, C. A. (Ed.) (2005).  Expressive Therapies . New York, NY: Guilford Press. Dr. Cathy Malchiodi is a prominent voice in the field of Expressive Arts Therapies. Her publications have made these concepts and research in our field widely accessible to practitioners and the general public. Her most recent works focus on the healing principles of EXA when working with clients who have experienced trauma. This text offers a very helpful, efficient introduction of the major creative and expressive arts therapy disciplines.
• Bailey, S. (2021),  Careers in Creative Arts Therapy Careers: Succeeding as a Creative Professional . Routledge. This is a collection of essays written by and interviews with registered drama therapists, dance/movement therapists, music therapists, art therapists, poetry therapists, and expressive arts therapists. The book sheds light on the fascinating yet little-known field of the creative arts therapies – psychotherapy approaches which allow clients to use creativity and artistic expression to explore their lives, solve their problems, make meaning, and heal from their traumas. Featuring stories of educators in each of the six fields and at different stages of their career (including CIIS EXA faculty, Danielle Drake, PhD and Phil Weglarz, PhD), it outlines the steps one needs to take in order to find training in one of the creative arts therapies and explores the healing aspects of the arts, where creative arts therapists work, who they work with, and how they use the arts in therapy.   This book illuminates creative arts therapy career possibilities for undergraduate and graduate students studying acting, directing, playwriting, creative writing, visual arts, theatre design, dance, and music. 
• Afuape, T. (2011).  Power, Resistance and Liberation in Therapy with Survivors of Trauma: To have our hearts broken . New York, NY: Routledge. Dr. Taiwo Afuape's work is foundational to the pedagogy of the EXA Program. She has reconceptualized the concepts of power, resistance and liberation as co-creative acts that take place in therapy and in life for both clients and practitioners alike. Through liberation psychology, Dr. Afuape outlines a vision for co-create healing practices that honor the wisdom and agency of all involved in healing processes.
• Menakem, R. (2017).  My Grandmother’s Hands.  Las Vegas, NV: Central Recovery Press. This recent publication by Mr. Resmaa Menakem shifts the focus of racism to the body. This ground-breaking text is part of the required reading for the Family Systems course sequence in the EXA program.
• Hooks, b. (1994).  Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom.  New York, NY: Routledge. A classic in the field of education, Womanist activist/scholar/educator bell hooks' treatise on teaching as an act of rebellion in the name of freedom informs the foundational pedagogies of the Expressive Arts Therapy program. As a community of learners, we are all gathered together to become contributing Scholar/Artist/Practitioners in the wider field of Expressive Arts Therapy.
• International Expressive Arts Therapy Association 
• Expressive Therapies Summit 
• Critical Pedagogies in the Arts Therapies 
• The National Organization for Arts in Health 
• Creative Arts in Education and Therapy

Before entering the world of Expressive Arts Therapy as a graduate student, we recommend that you get involved in the community. Practical experience in human services and local arts are important early steps of the learning experience. Below are examples of how to gain experience:

• LGBTQ Support -  The Trevor Project 
• Youth Support -  List of Teen Helplines 
• Seniors and Mental Health -  National Coalition on Mental Health & Aging  
• OR, contact local agencies in your area to inquire about volunteer opportunities
• Suicide Prevention Hotline Information  
• Domestic Violence Hotline Information  
• OR, contact your local DV agency to inquire about hotline training opportunities.
• Attend arts performances, lectures, movies, or cultural events (please practice safety measures during COVID-19 - many events have gone online!)
• Ask a friend from a spiritual practice other than your own if you may worship with them
• Take a class that teaches you about cultures other than your own locations of identity
• Read books (see above for some suggestions)
• Study forms of art that are unfamiliar to you. If you are a singer, study painting. If you are a ceramicist, study singing. If you are a poet, study improv. The sky is the limit!

The professional practice of counseling is a regulated occupation in the state of California. Coursework in the Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology program at CIIS and each of its five programs is approved by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences (BBS) to fulfill educational requirements toward the marriage and family therapist license (LMFT).

Students also have the option to take additional coursework to fulfill the educational requirements of the professional clinical counselor license (LPCC). Students seeking the LPCC licensure also take courses for the MFT, enabling them to pursue either license and to work with couples, families, and/or children as an LPCC.

Students seeking licensure in California as an LMFT or LPCC must register with the BBS after graduation and successfully complete additional post-graduate supervised clinical associate hours and written examinations. See the BBS’ Statutes and Regulations PDF for additional information.

In many cases, our coursework and training is very similar or entirely portable to many states. However, each state has their own specific licensure requirements that include both academic coursework and clinical practicum hours that may differ from CA’s requirements.

In cases where this program does not meet the requirements for another state, additional coursework or practicum hours may be required. While licensure may be possible in another state, it is not guaranteed. Luckily, you will have the full support of the Director of MCP who will help you understand the specific licensing requirements.

Lastly, you should consult the licensing boards of the appropriate state of country for the most up-to-date licensing information outside of California.

Our Department in Action

Expressive Arts Therapy: Online Info Session

A Faculty-Led Info Session with Christine Brooks

Admissions Office Hour

Online with Ishan McCarthy. Focus programs: Expressive Arts Therapy (M.A.-C.P.) and Somatic Psychology (M.A.-C.P.)

Take the Next Step

For over 50 years, CIIS has been at the forefront of education that integrates rigorous science, innovative scholarship, and social justice. You will learn from faculty at the forefront of their fields, local artists and activists, and a community of peers as passionate and dedicated as you. There’s never been a better time to be here – let’s build a healthier and more equitable world.

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Department of English

M.f.a. creative writing.

English Department

Physical Address: 200 Brink Hall

Mailing Address: English Department University of Idaho 875 Perimeter Drive MS 1102 Moscow, Idaho 83844-1102

Phone: 208-885-6156

Email: [email protected]

Web: English

Thank you for your interest in the Creative Writing MFA Program at University of Idaho: the premier fully funded, three-year MFA program in the Northwest. Situated in the panhandle of Northern Idaho in the foothills of Moscow Mountain, we offer the time and support to train in the traditions, techniques, and practice of nonfiction, poetry, and fiction. Each student graduates as the author of a manuscript of publishable quality after undertaking a rigorous process of thesis preparation and a public defense. Spring in Moscow has come to mean cherry blossoms, snowmelt in Paradise Creek, and the head-turning accomplishments of our thesis-year students. Ours is a faculty of active, working writers who relish teaching and mentorship. We invite you in the following pages to learn about us, our curriculum, our community, and the town of Moscow. If the prospect of giving yourself three years with us to develop as a writer, teacher, and editor is appealing, we look forward to reading your application.

Pure Poetry

A Decade Working in a Smelter Is Topic of Alumnus Zach Eddy’s Poems

Ancestral Recognition

The region surrounding the University of Idaho is the ancestral land of both the Coeur d’Alene and Nez Perce peoples, and its campus in Moscow sits on unceded lands guaranteed to the Nez Perce people in the 1855 Treaty with the Nez Perce. As a land grant university, the University of Idaho also benefits from endowment lands that are the ancestral homes to many of the West’s Native peoples. The Department of English and Creative Writing Program acknowledge this history and share in the communal effort to ensure that the complexities and atrocities of the past remain in our discourse and are never lost to time. We invite you to think of the traditional “land acknowledgment” statement through our MFA alum CMarie Fuhrman’s words .

Degree Requirements

Three years to write.

Regardless of where you are in your artistic career, there is nothing more precious than time. A three-year program gives you time to generate, refine, and edit a body of original work. Typically, students have a light third year, which allows for dedicated time to complete and revise the Creative Thesis. (48 manuscript pages for those working in poetry, 100 pages for those working in prose.)

Our degree requirements are designed to reflect the real-world interests of a writer. Students are encouraged to focus their studies in ways that best reflect their artistic obsessions as well as their lines of intellectual and critical inquiry. In effect, students may be as genre-focused or as multi-genre as they please. Students must remain in-residence during their degrees. Typically, one class earns you 3 credits. The MFA requires a total of 54 earned credits in the following categories.

12 Credits : Graduate-level Workshop courses in Fiction, Poetry, and/or Nonfiction. 9 Credits: Techniques and Traditions courses in Fiction, Poetry, and/or Nonfiction 3 Credits : Internships: Fugue, Confluence Lab, and/or Pedagogy 9 Credits: Literature courses 12 Credits: Elective courses 10 Credits: Thesis

Flexible Degree Path

Students are admitted to our program in one of three genres, Poetry, Fiction, or Nonfiction. By design, our degree path offers ample opportunity to take Workshop, Techniques, Traditions, and Literature courses in any genre. Our faculty work and publish in multiple genres and value the slipperiness of categorization. We encourage students to write in as broad or focused a manner as they see fit. We are not at all interested in making writers “stay in their lanes,” and we encourage students to shape their degree paths in accordance with their passions. 

What You Study

During your degree, you will take Workshop, Techniques, Traditions, and Literature courses.

Our workshop classes are small by design (typically twelve students or fewer) and taught by core and visiting MFA faculty. No two workshop experiences look alike, but what they share are faculty members committed to the artistic and intellectual passions of their workshop participants.

Techniques studios are developed and taught by core and visiting MFA faculty. These popular courses are dedicated to the granular aspects of writing, from deep study of the poetic image to the cultivation of independent inquiry in nonfiction to the raptures of research in fiction. Such courses are heavy on generative writing and experimentation, offering students a dedicated space to hone their craft in a way that is complementary to their primary work.

Traditions seminars are developed and taught by core and visiting MFA faculty. These generative writing courses bring student writing into conversation with a specific trajectory or “tradition” of literature, from life writing to outlaw literature to the history of the short story, from prosody to postwar surrealism to genre-fluidity and beyond. These seminars offer students a dynamic space to position their work within the vast and varied trajectories of literature.

Literature courses are taught by core Literature and MFA faculty. Our department boasts field-leading scholars, interdisciplinary writers and thinkers, and theory-driven practitioners who value the intersection of scholarly study, research, humanism, and creative writing.

Award-Winning Faculty

We teach our classes first and foremost as practitioners of the art. Full stop. Though our styles and interests lie at divergent points on the literary landscape, our common pursuit is to foster the artistic and intellectual growth of our students, regardless of how or why they write. We value individual talent and challenge all students to write deep into their unique passions, identities, histories, aesthetics, and intellects. We view writing not as a marketplace endeavor but as an act of human subjectivity. We’ve authored or edited several books across the genres.

Learn more about Our People .

Thesis Defense

The MFA experience culminates with each student writing and defending a creative thesis. For prose writers, theses are 100 pages of creative work; for poets, 48 pages. Though theses often take the form of an excerpt from a book-in-progress, students have flexibility when it comes to determining the shape, form, and content of their creative projects. In their final year, each student works on envisioning and revising their thesis with three committee members, a Major Professor (core MFA faculty) and two additional Readers (core UI faculty). All students offer a public thesis defense. These events are attended by MFA students, faculty, community members, and other invitees. During a thesis defense, a candidate reads from their work for thirty minutes, answers artistic and critical questions from their Major Professor and two Readers for forty-five minutes, and then answer audience questions for thirty minutes. Though formally structured and rigorous, the thesis defense is ultimately a celebration of each student’s individual talent.

The Symposium Reading Series is a longstanding student-run initiative that offers every second-year MFA candidate an opportunity to read their works-in-progress in front of peers, colleagues, and community members. This reading and Q & A event prepares students for the third-year public thesis defense. These off-campus events are fun and casual, exemplifying our community centered culture and what matters most: the work we’re all here to do.

Teaching Assistantships

All students admitted to the MFA program are fully funded through Teaching Assistantships. All Assistantships come with a full tuition waiver and a stipend, which for the current academic year is roughly $15,000. Over the course of three years, MFA students teach a mix of composition courses, sections of Introduction to Creative Writing (ENGL 290), and additional writing courses, as departmental needs arise. Students may also apply to work in the Writing Center as positions become available. When you join the MFA program at Idaho, you receive teacher training prior to the beginning of your first semester. We value the role MFA students serve within the department and consider each graduate student as a working artist and colleague. Current teaching loads for Teaching Assistants are two courses per semester. Some members of the Fugue editorial staff receive course reductions to offset the demands of editorial work. We also award a variety of competitive and need-based scholarships to help offset general living costs. In addition, we offer three outstanding graduate student fellowships: The Hemingway Fellowship, Centrum Fellowship, and Writing in the Wild Fellowship. Finally, our Graduate and Professional Student Association offers extra-departmental funding in the form of research and travel grants to qualifying students throughout the academic year.

Distinguished Visiting Writers Series

Each year, we bring a Distinguished Visiting Writer to campus. DVWs interface with our writing community through public readings, on-stage craft conversations hosted by core MFA faculty, and small seminars geared toward MFA candidates. Recent DVWs include Maggie Nelson, Roger Reeves, Luis Alberto Urrea, Brian Evenson, Kate Zambreno, Dorianne Laux, Teju Cole, Tyehimba Jess, Claire Vaye Watkins, Naomi Shihab Nye, David Shields, Rebecca Solnit, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Susan Orlean, Natasha Tretheway, Jo Ann Beard, William Logan, Aisha Sabatini Sloan, Gabino Iglesias, and Marcus Jackson, among several others.

Fugue Journal

Established in 1990 at the University of Idaho, Fugue publishes poetry, fiction, essays, hybrid work, and visual art from established and emerging writers and artists. Fugue is managed and edited entirely by University of Idaho graduate students, with help from graduate and undergraduate readers. We take pride in the work we print, the writers we publish, and the presentation of both print and digital content. We hold an annual contest in both prose and poetry, judged by two nationally recognized writers. Past judges include Pam Houston, Dorianne Laux, Rodney Jones, Mark Doty, Rick Moody, Ellen Bryant Voigt, Jo Ann Beard, Rebecca McClanahan, Patricia Hampl, Traci Brimhall, Edan Lepucki, Tony Hoagland, Chen Chen, Aisha Sabatini Sloan, sam sax, and Leni Zumas. The journal boasts a remarkable list of past contributors, including Steve Almond, Charles Baxter, Stephen Dobyns, Denise Duhamel, Stephen Dunn, B.H. Fairchild, Nick Flynn, Terrance Hayes, Campbell McGrath, W.S. Merwin, Sharon Olds, Jim Shepard, RT Smith, Virgil Suarez, Melanie Rae Thon, Natasha Trethewey, Philip Levine, Anthony Varallo, Robert Wrigley, and Dean Young, among many others.

Academy of American Poets University Prize

The Creative Writing Program is proud to partner with the Academy of American Poets to offer an annual Academy of American Poets University Prize to a student at the University of Idaho. The prize results in a small honorarium through the Academy as well as publication of the winning poem on the Academy website. The Prize was established in 2009 with a generous grant from Karen Trujillo and Don Burnett. Many of our nation’s most esteemed and celebrated poets won their first recognition through an Academy of American Poets Prize, including Diane Ackerman, Toi Derricotte, Mark Doty, Tess Gallagher, Louise Glück, Jorie Graham, Kimiko Hahn, Joy Harjo, Robert Hass, Li-Young Lee, Gregory Orr, Sylvia Plath, Mark Strand, and Charles Wright.

Fellowships

Centrum fellowships.

Those selected as Centrum Fellows attend the summer Port Townsend Writers’ Conference free of charge. Housed in Fort Worden (which is also home to Copper Canyon Press), Centrum is a nonprofit dedicated to fostering several artistic programs throughout the year. With a focus on rigorous attention to craft, the Writers’ Conference offers five full days of morning intensives, afternoon workshops, and craft lectures to eighty participants from across the nation. The cost of the conference, which includes tuition, lodging, and meals, is covered by the scholarship. These annual scholarship are open to all MFA candidates in all genres.

Hemingway Fellowships

This fellowship offers an MFA Fiction student full course releases in their final year. The selection of the Hemingway Fellow is based solely on the quality of an applicant’s writing. Each year, applicants have their work judged blind by a noted author who remains anonymous until the selection process has been completed. Through the process of blind selection, the Hemingway Fellowship Fund fulfills its mission of giving the Fellow the time they need to complete a substantial draft of a manuscript.

Writing in the Wild

This annual fellowship gives two MFA students the opportunity to work in Idaho’s iconic wilderness areas. The fellowship fully supports one week at either the McCall Outdoor Science School (MOSS), which borders Payette Lake and Ponderosa State Park, or the Taylor Wilderness Research Station, which lies in the heart of the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness Area. Both campuses offer year-round housing. These writing retreats allow students to concentrate solely on their writing. Because both locations often house researchers, writers will also have the opportunity to interface with foresters, geologists, biologists, and interdisciplinary scholars.

Program History

Idaho admitted its first class of seven MFA students in 1994 with a faculty of four: Mary Clearman Blew, Tina Foriyes, Ron McFarland (founder of Fugue), and Lance Olsen. From the beginning, the program was conceived as a three-year sequence of workshops and techniques classes. Along with offering concentrations in writing fiction and poetry, Idaho was one of the first in the nation to offer a full concentration in creative nonfiction. Also from its inception, Idaho not only allowed but encouraged its students to enroll in workshops outside their primary genres. Idaho has become one of the nation’s most respected three-year MFA programs, attracting both field-leading faculty and students. In addition to the founders of this program, notable distinguished faculty have included Kim Barnes, Robert Wrigley, Daniel Orozco, Joy Passanante, Tobias Wray, Brian Blanchfield, and Scott Slovic, whose collective vision, rigor, grit, and care have paved the way for future generations committed to the art of writing.

The Palouse

Situated in the foothills of Moscow Mountain amid the rolling terrain of the Palouse (the ancient silt beds unique to the region), our location in the vibrant community of Moscow, Idaho, boasts a lively and artistic local culture. Complete with independent bookstores, coffee shops, art galleries, restaurants and breweries, (not to mention a historic art house cinema, organic foods co-op, and renowned seasonal farmer’s market), Moscow is a friendly and affordable place to live. Outside of town, we’re lucky to have many opportunities for hiking, skiing, rafting, biking, camping, and general exploring—from nearby Idler’s Rest and Kamiak Butte to renowned destinations like Glacier National Park, the Snake River, the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness Area, and Nelson, BC. As for more urban getaways, Spokane, Washington, is only a ninety-minute drive, and our regional airline, Alaska, makes daily flights to and from Seattle that run just under an hour.

For upcoming events and program news, please visit our calendar .

For more information about the MFA program, please contact us at:  [email protected]

Department of English University of Idaho 875 Perimeter Drive MS 1102 Moscow, ID 83844-1102 208-885-6156

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Earning A Master’s In Creative Writing: What To Know

Updated: Nov 1, 2023, 1:51pm

Do you want to create written work that ignites a reader’s imagination and even changes their worldview? With a master’s in creative writing, you can develop strong storytelling and character development skills, equipping you to achieve your writing goals.

If you’re ready to strengthen your writing chops and you enjoy writing original works to inspire others, tell interesting stories and share valuable information, earning a master’s in creative writing may be the next step on your career journey.

The skills learned in a creative writing master’s program qualify you to write your own literary works, teach others creative writing principles or pursue various other careers.

This article explores master’s degrees in creative writing, including common courses and concentrations, admission requirements and careers that use creative writing skills. Read on to learn more about earning a master’s degree in creative writing.

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What Is a Master’s in Creative Writing?

A master’s in creative writing is an advanced degree that helps you develop the skills to write your own novel, poetry, screenplay or nonfiction book. This degree can also prepare you for a career in business, publishing, education, marketing or communications.

In a creative writing master’s degree program, you can expect to analyze literature, explore historical contexts of literary works, master techniques for revising and editing, engage in class workshops and peer critiques, and write your own original work.

Creative writing master’s programs usually require a thesis project, which should be well-written, polished and ready to publish. Typical examples of thesis projects include poetry collections, memoirs, essay collections, short story collections and novels.

A master’s in creative writing typically requires about 36 credits and takes two years to complete. Credit requirements and timelines vary by program, so you may be able to finish your degree quicker.

Specializations for a Master’s in Creative Writing

Below are a few common concentrations for creative writing master’s programs. These vary by school, so your program’s offerings may look different.

This concentration helps you develop fiction writing skills, such as plot development, character creation and world-building. A fiction concentration is a good option if you plan to write short stories, novels or other types of fiction.

A nonfiction concentration focuses on the mechanics of writing nonfiction narratives. If you plan to write memoirs, travel pieces, magazine articles, technical documents or nonfiction books, this concentration may suit you.

Explore the imagery, tone, rhythm and structure of poetry with a poetry concentration. With this concentration, you can expect to develop your poetry writing skills and learn to curate poetry for journals and magazines.

Screenwriting

Screenwriting is an excellent concentration to explore if you enjoy creating characters and telling stories to make them come alive for television or film. This specialization covers how to write shorts, episodic serials, documentaries and feature-length film scripts.

Admission Requirements for a Master’s in Creative Writing

Below are some typical admission requirements for master’s in creative writing degree programs. These requirements vary, so check with your program to ensure you’ve met the appropriate requirements.

• Application for admission
• Bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution
• Transcripts from previous education
• Writing samples
• Letters of recommendation
• Personal statement or essay

Common Courses in a Master’s in Creative Writing

Story and concept.

This course focuses on conceptualizing, planning and developing stories on a structural level. Learners study how to generate ideas, develop interesting plots, create outlines, draft plot arcs, engage in world-building and create well-rounded characters who move their stories forward.

Graduate Studies in English Literature

Understanding literature is essential to building a career in creative writing. This course prepares you to teach, study literature or write professionally. Expect to discuss topics such as phonology, semantics, dialects, syntax and the history of the English language.

Workshop in Creative Nonfiction

You’ll study classic and contemporary creative nonfiction in this course. Workshops in creative nonfiction explore how different genres have emerged throughout history and how previous works influence new works. In some programs, this course focuses on a specific theme.

Foundations in Fiction

In this course, you’ll explore how the novel has developed throughout literary history and how the short story emerged as an art form. Coursework includes reading classic and contemporary works, writing response essays and crafting critical analyses.

MA in Creative Writing vs. MFA in Creative Writing: What’s the Difference?

While the degrees are similar, a master of arts in creative writing is different from a master of fine arts in creative writing. An MA in creative writing teaches creative writing competencies, building analytical skills through studying literature, literary theory and related topics. This lets you explore storytelling along with a more profound knowledge of literature and literary theory.

If you want your education to take a more academic perspective so you can build a career in one of many fields related to writing, an MA in creative writing may be right for you.

An MFA prepares you to work as a professional writer or novelist. MFA students graduate with a completed manuscript that is ready for publishing. Coursework highlights subjects related to the business of writing, such as digital publishing, the importance of building a platform on social media , marketing, freelancing and teaching. An MA in creative writing also takes less time and requires fewer credits than an MFA.

If you want to understand the business of writing and work as a professional author or novelist, earning an MFA in creative writing might be your best option.

What Can You Do With a Master’s in Creative Writing?

Below are several careers you can pursue with a master’s in creative writing. We sourced salary data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Postsecondary Creative Writing Teacher

Median Annual Salary: $74,280 Minimum Required Education: Ph.D. or another doctoral degree; master’s degree may be accepted at some schools and community colleges Job Overview: Postsecondary teachers, also known as professors or faculty, teach students at the college level. They plan lessons, advise students, serve on committees, conduct research, publish original research, supervise graduate teaching assistants, apply for grants for their research and teach subjects in their areas of expertise.

Median Annual Salary: $73,080 Minimum Required Education: Bachelor’s degree in English or a related field Job Overview: Editors plan, revise and edit written materials for publication. They work for newspapers, magazines, book publishers, advertising agencies, media networks, and motion picture and video production companies. Editors work closely with writers to ensure their written work is accurate, grammatically correct and written in the appropriate style for the medium.

Median Annual Salary: $55,960 Minimum Required Education: Bachelor’s degree in journalism or a related field Job Overview: Journalists research and write stories about local, regional, national and global current events and other newsworthy subjects. Journalists need strong interviewing, editing, analytical and writing skills. Some journalists specialize in a subject, such as sports or politics, and some are generalists. They work for news organizations, magazines and online publications, and some work as freelancers.

Writer or Author

Median Annual Salary: $73,150 Minimum Required Education: None; bachelor’s degree in creative writing or a related field sometimes preferred Job Overview: Writers and authors write fiction or nonfiction content for magazines, plays, blogs, books, television scripts and other forms of media. Novelists, biographers, copywriters, screenwriters and playwrights all fall into this job classification. Writers may work for advertising agencies, news platforms, book publishers and other organizations; some work as freelancers.

Technical Writer

Median Annual Salary: $79,960 Minimum Required Education: Bachelor’s degree Job Overview: Technical writers craft technical documents, such as training manuals and how-to guides. They are adept at simplifying technical information so lay people can easily understand it. Technical writers may work with technical staff, graphic designers, computer support specialists and software developers to create user-friendly finished pieces.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About a Master's in Creative Writing

Is a master’s in creative writing useful.

If your goal is to launch a career as a writer, then yes, a master’s in creative writing is useful. An MA in creative writing is a versatile degree that prepares you for various jobs requiring excellent writing skills.

Is an MFA better than an MA for creative writing?

One is not better than the other; you should choose the one that best equips you for the career you want. An MFA prepares you to build a career as a professional writer or novelist. An MA prepares you for various jobs demanding high-level writing skills.

What kind of jobs can you get with a creative writing degree?

A creative writing degree prepares you for many types of writing jobs. It helps you build your skills and gain expertise to work as an editor, writer, author, technical writer or journalist. This degree is also essential if you plan to teach writing classes at the college level.

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Sheryl Grey is a freelance writer who specializes in creating content related to education, aging and senior living, and real estate. She is also a copywriter who helps businesses grow through expert website copywriting, branding and content creation. Sheryl holds a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communications from Indiana University South Bend, and she received her teacher certification training through Bethel University’s Transition to Teaching program.

Fully Funded MFA Programs in Creative Writing

As part of our series  How to Fully Fund Your Master’s Degree , here is a list of universities that have fully funded MFA programs in creative writing. A Master’s of Fine Arts in creative writing can lead to a career as a professional writer, in academia, and more.

Fully funded MFA programs in Creative Writing offer a financial aid package for full-time students that includes full tuition remission as well as an annual stipend or salary during the entire program, which for Master’s degrees is usually 1-2 years. Funding usually comes with the expectation that students will teach or complete research in their field of study. Not all universities fully fund their Master’s students, which is why researching the financial aid offerings of many different programs, including small and lesser-known schools both in the U.S. and abroad, is essential.

In addition to listing fully funded Master’s and PhD programs, the ProFellow fellowships database also includes external funding opportunities for graduate school, including fellowships for dissertation research, fieldwork, language study, study abroad, summer work experiences, and professional development.

Would you like to receive the full list of more than 1000+ fully funded Master’s and PhD programs in 60 disciplines? Download the FREE Directory of Fully Funded Graduate Programs and Full Funding Awards !

Here is the list of 53 universities that offer fully-funded MFA programs (Master’s of Fine Arts) in Creative Writing.

University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa, AL): Students admitted to the MFA Program are guaranteed full financial support for up to 4-years. Assistantships include a stipend paid over nine months (currently $14,125), and full payment of up to 15 credit hours of graduate tuition.

University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ): All accepted MFA students receive full funding through a graduate teaching assistantship for 3 years. This package includes tuition remission, health insurance, and a modest stipend (in 2018 it was about $16,100 per academic year).

Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ): 3-year program. All students admitted to the MFA program who submit a complete and approved teaching assistantship application are awarded a TA by the Department of English. Each assistantship carries a three-course per year load and includes a tuition waiver and health insurance in addition to the TA stipend ($18,564 per year). In addition, students have diverse opportunities for additional financial and professional support.

University of Arkansas (Fayetteville, AR): Four-year program. Teaching assistantships currently carry an annual stipend of $13,500 for students with a BA. TAs also receive a waiver of all tuition costs and teach two courses each semester. Nearly all of our accepted students receive TAs. Additionally, the students compete each year for several fellowships.

Boise State University (Boise, Idaho): 3-year fully funded MFA program dedicated to poetry and fiction. All students receive a tuition waiver, health insurance, and a Teaching Assistantship with a stipend of $11,450 per year.

Bowling Green State University (Bowling Green, OH): 2-year program, graduate assistantships (including stipend and scholarship) are available for all eligible face-to-face students. 100% tuition scholarship. Graduate stipend (the 2020-21 stipend is $11,500).

Brown University (Providence, RI): All incoming MFA students received full funding. All graduate students receive a fellowship that pays a monthly stipend and provides tuition remission, the health fee, and health insurance. The stipend for the 2020-2021 academic year is $29,926. Also, students in good standing receive a summer stipend of $2,993.

Boston University (Boston, MA): Tuition costs will be covered for every admitted student for the MFA degree in the BU Creative Writing Program. In addition, admitted students will receive university health insurance while they are enrolled, and all admitted students will receive stipend support of roughly $16,000 for the academic year.

Cornell University (Ithaca, NY): All MFA degree candidates are guaranteed 2 years of funding (including a stipend, a full-tuition fellowship, and student health insurance).

University of California Irvine (Irvine, CA): 3-year program. The Department is committed to providing 3 full years of financial support to all domestic students in the MFA Programs in Writing. Financial support for MFA students is given in the form of Teaching Assistantships providing full tuition coverage as well as University health insurance. Students will earn an estimated $22,569 for the academic year.

University of California San Diego (La Jolla, CA): MFA in Writing students are eligible for financial support if they study full-time, maintain good academic standing and make timely progress toward the degree. All students are eligible for full funding, including international students provided they meet the English language certification requirement for teaching assistants.

University of California Riverside (Riverside, CA): All incoming students are granted a full fellowship and stipend for their first year. After the first year, students receive full tuition and a salary through teaching assistantships.

Florida Atlantic University (Boca Raton, FL): 3-year program. All of the MFA students qualify for a position as a Graduate Teaching Assistant. The GTA position comes with a tuition waiver and a stipend. The standard stipend is $9,000, but some enhanced stipends are available. The Graduate College offers several fellowships for current graduate students.

Florida State University (Tallahassee, FL): The majority of students receive support in the form of a teaching assistantship and are provided with a stipend, a tuition waiver, and a health-insurance subsidy. MFA students receive a three-year assistantship. For 2022-23, MA/MFA stipends will be $16,400, and typically these amounts go up each year. Also, The FSU Graduate School offers several fellowships and awards.

Georgia College & State University (Milledgeville, GA): The MFA Program offers workshops in fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry, and students take cross-genre workshops. All students admitted to the MFA program receive a Graduate Assistantship for all 3 years that includes a stipend and tuition remission.

University of Houston (Houston, TX): MFA students can receive a teaching assistantship for 3 years. Starting salary for MFAs is $17,935/9 months. Students in the Creative. As part of the assistantship, students are awarded either a Graduate Tuition Fellowship, which remits tuition, or a Creative Writing Program Fellowship, which covers the cost of tuition.

University of Idaho (Moscow, Idaho): All English Teaching Assistants (TA’s) are offered full tuition waivers. Teaching Assistants are given a stipend of $14,000 per year. Also offers three scholarships and three outstanding fellowships to support qualified MFA, graduate students.

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (Urbana, IL): Three-year MFA program. Students accepted into the MFA program will receive full tuition waivers, guaranteed teaching assistantships.

Indiana University (Bloomington, IN): M.F.A. programs offer a generous teaching package to creative writing students. All applicants receive consideration for appropriate fellowships that will carry a stipend of about $19,000, plus tuition and fee-remission that covers roughly 90% of the cost of enrollment.

Iowa State University (Ames, IA): 3-year MFA program. Starting half-time 20 hours per week teaching assistantships for MFA students total $19,250 over 10 months and also receive a full-tuition waiver scholarship (approximate value $10,140) and health insurance coverage. The department has several resources available through which to offer fellowships and scholarships to qualifying new students.

University of Iowa (Iowa City, IA): 2-year residency program. Financial assistance is available for all students enrolled in the program, in the form of teaching assistantships, research assistantships, and fellowships. Most fellowships and assistantships provide either tuition scholarships or full tuition remission.

John Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD): 2-year program. All students receive full tuition, health insurance, and a generous teaching fellowship, currently set at $30,500 per year. Some students work as assistant editors on The Hopkins Review. They often win prizes such as Stegner Fellowships or grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.

University of Maryland (College Park, MD): This 3-year program accepts 8 applicants who are fully funded by Teaching Assistantships for up to three years of graduate study. Our aid packages include a stipend of about $20,000 per academic year and 60 credit hours of tuition remission.

Miami University (Oxford, OH): All students admitted to the MFA program in Creative Writing hold generous Graduate Assistantships (which include a summer stipend). Non-teaching assistantships may also be available.

University of Miami (Coral Gables, FL): An intensive two-year study with a third year option. The James Michener Fellowships and Teaching Assistantships support all our graduate students. Awards include a full tuition waiver and annual stipend of $18,915.

University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI): All MFA students accepted into the program are offered a full tuition waiver, a stipend of $23,000/yearly as well as $5,000 in summer funding, and health care benefits. Additionally, various fellowships and prizes are awarded each year to MFA students.

University of Minnesota (Minneapolis, MN): All admitted MFAs receive full funding, in the form of teaching assistantships or fellowships. Teaching assistantships carry a full tuition waiver, health benefits, and a stipend of about $18,600. Also, a variety of fellowships are available for graduate students.

University of Mississippi (University, MS): All of our students are fully funded.  We offer two main sources of funding, the Grisham Fellowships and Teaching Assistantships.

University of Nevada Las Vegas (Las Vegas, NV): 3-year program. All MFA students admitted to the Creative Writing International program at UNLV are offered Graduate Assistantship funding of $15,000 per year (which includes in-state tuition and provisions for health insurance).

Northwestern University (Evanston, IL): Funding is provided for 3 full years, summers included. Tuition is covered by a tuition scholarship during any quarter in which you are receiving a stipend.

University of Notre Dame (Notre Dame, IN): Every student admitted to the MFA receives a full-tuition scholarship, a fellowship that carries a full stipend of $16,000 per year and access to a 100% health insurance subsidy.

North Carolina State University (Raleigh, NC): A two-year, fully-funded program, They accept only about a dozen students each year and offer full funding in the form of a graduate teaching assistantship to all eligible admitted applicants.

Ohio State University (Columbus, OH): All admitted students are fully funded for our 3-year MFA program in Creative Writing. In addition, all students receive either a graduate teaching associateship, a Graduate School fellowship or a combination of the two. For graduate teaching associateships, the student receives a stipend of at least $17,000 for the nine-month academic year.

University of Oregon (Eugene OR): A two-year residency MFA program. All incoming MFA students funded with a teaching appointment. Student instructors receive tuition remission, monthly stipends of approximately $18,000.

Oregon State University (Corvallis, OR): All students admitted to the MFA program will automatically receive a standard teaching Graduate Teaching Assistantship contract, which provides full tuition remission and stipend of approximately $12,800 per year to cover living expenses. In addition to tuition remission, all graduate students have the option to receive 89% coverage of health insurance costs for themselves and their dependents.

University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, PA): 3-year MFA program. All students admitted to the program will receive Teaching Assistantships for two or three years. All Teaching Assistantships include salary, medical benefits, and tuition remission.

Rutgers University–Newark (Newark, NJ): Each full-time incoming student receives in-state Tuition Remission and a Chancellor’s Stipend of 15K per year. Students are also eligible for Teaching Assistantships, and Part-Time Lectureships teaching Comp or Creative Writing. Teaching Assistantships are $25,969 (approximate) plus health benefits.

University of South Florida (Tampa, FL): 3-year program. MFA students receive a tuition waiver, a teaching assistantship that comes with a stipend, and enrollment in group health insurance.

Southern Illinois University (Carbondale, IL): Almost all MFA students hold graduate assistantships, which provide stipends for the academic year and full remission of tuition. The annual stipend, which comes with tuition remission, ranges from $13,000 to $14,500.

Syracuse University (Syracuse, NY): Three-Year M.F.A. in Creative Writing. All students are fully funded. Each student admitted receives a full-tuition scholarship in addition to an annual stipend of $17,500.

University of South Carolina (Columbia, SC): 3-year MFA program. The MFA at Carolina is pleased to provide fellowship and/or assistantship funding to all accepted students, earning our program the designation of “fully funded” from Poets and Writers.

University of Tennessee — Knoxville (Knoxville, TN): There is no cost to apply to the MFA program. All of our PhD candidates and MFA students are fully funded, with generous opportunities for additional financial support.

University of Texas in Austin (Austin, TX): All students in the New Writers Project receive three years of full funding through a combination of teaching assistantships (TA), assistant instructorships (AI), and fellowship support. The complete package includes full tuition remission, health insurance, and a salary.

University of Texas James Michener Center (Austin, TX): A three-year, fully funded residency MFA program that provides full and equal funding to every writer. All admitted students receive a fellowship of $29,500 per academic year, plus total coverage of tuition.

Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN): Each year a small, select class of talented writers of fiction and poetry enroll in Vanderbilt’s three-year, fully-funded MFA Program in Creative Writing. The University Fellowship provides full-tuition benefits, health insurance, and a stipend of $30,000/yearly. In 2nd year and third-year students have the opportunity to teach for one semester.

University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA): Three-year MFA program. Students will receive fellowship support and/or teaching income in the amount of $20,000 each academic year, as well as full funding of your tuition, enrollment fees, and the health insurance premium for single-person coverage through the university.

Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA): Three-year MFA degree offers tracks in Poetry and Fiction, and all students are fully and equally funded via GTA-ships of more than $20,000 per year.

Washington University in St. Louis (St. Louis, MO): Because of selectivity and size they are able to offer all the new students full and equal financial aid for both years in the program in the form of a University Fellowship, which provides a complete tuition waiver plus a stipend sufficient for students to live comfortably in our relatively inexpensive city. All MFA students receive health insurance through Washington University.

Western Kentucky University (Bowling Green, KY): Three-year, fully-funded, residential MFA program in creative writing offering generous assistantships, which will allow MFA students to gain valuable experience tutoring and teaching.

West Virginia University (Morgantown, WV): A three-year program. All Master of Fine Arts students receive a full tuition waiver and an assistantship, which includes a stipend valued at $16,750.

Wichita State University (Wichita, Kansas): Most of the MFA students are GTAs who teach two composition classes each semester. They pay no tuition, receive $4,250 each semester and may buy discounted health insurance. The MFA program also awards two $12,500 fellowships each year.

University of Wisconsin–Madison (Madison, WI): All accepted MFA candidates receive tuition remissions, teaching assistantships, generous health insurance, and other financial support. In addition to the approximately $14,680 paid to each MFA annually in exchange for teaching, every MFA candidate will receive another $9,320 in scholarships each year.

University of Wyoming (Laramie, WY): All of our full-time MFA students are fully funded with two-year graduate assistantships. Currently, assistantships include a stipend of $12,330 per academic year, a tuition and fees waiver, and student health insurance. Students also receive summer stipends of up to $2,000 for the summer.

Would you like to receive the full list of more than 1,000+ fully funded PhD and master’s programs?  Get your copy of ProFellow’s FREE Directory of Fully Funded Graduate Programs and Full Funding Awards !

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Creative Writing, Master of Fine Arts

Department of English

College of Arts and Letters

This program, which involves completing a creative thesis, allows you to balance academic course work in English with the serious study of creative writing.

University Requirements

To receive a master’s degree at Northern Arizona University, you must complete a planned group of courses from one or more subject areas, consisting of at least 30 units of graduate-level courses. Many master’s degree programs require more than 30 units. You must additionally complete:

• All requirements for your specific academic plan(s). This may include a thesis.
• All graduate work with a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.0.
• All work toward the master's degree must be completed within six consecutive years. The six years begins with the semester and year of admission to the program.

Read the full policy here .

In addition to University Requirements:

• Complete individual plan requirements.

Minimum Units for Completion	36
Additional Admission Requirements	Individual program admission requirements over and above admission to NAU are required.
Thesis	Thesis is required.
Oral Defense	Oral Defense is required.
Research	Individualized research is required.
Progression Plan Link

Purpose Statement The Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing balances the study and practice of creative writing with academic coursework in English. Students participate in writing workshops in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, undertake coursework in literature, and study critical theory. MFA candidates will present a creative thesis of between 45 to 120 pages, depending on genre.  The MFA Program at Northern Arizona University allows you to:   

• live and write in the beautiful, vibrant city of Flagstaff
• focus on poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction
• participate in intensive writing workshops with dedicated professors

Student Learning Outcomes   Upon completion of the Creative Writing MFA students will be able to:

• Examine, explicate, analyze and evaluate literary texts of considerable difficulty in order to determine the place of the student’s own work within a literary tradition.
• Develop the student’s own critical and aesthetic position, based on recognizing, understanding, and interpreting critical positions and literary arguments of other authors.
• Read and respond thoughtfully and thoroughly to work by other MFA students in order to hone the critical, intellectual, and analytical skills that are crucial to success in a broad range of literary, artistic, cultural and professional fields.
• Investigate the world of literary publishing in order to discover suitable journals, magazines and/or quality trade book publishers to which the student author can submit his/her own finished work.
• Refine skills in drafting, revising and editing in a primary literary genre with the goal of producing a polished creative manuscript of marketable quality.
• public readings,
• interviewing other writers,
• attending outside readings,
• writing book reviews,
• serving on editorial boards, and
• organizing literary events.

Graduate Admission Information

The NAU graduate online application is required for all programs. Admission to many graduate programs is on a competitive basis, and programs may have higher standards than those established by the Graduate College. Admission requirements include the following:

• Transcripts.
• Undergraduate degree from a regionally accredited institution with a 3.0 GPA on a 4.0 scale ("A" = 4.0), or the equivalent.

Visit the NAU Graduate Admissions website for additional information about graduate school application deadlines, eligibility for study, and admissions policies. Ready to apply? Begin your application now.

International applicants have additional admission requirements. Please see the International Graduate Admissions Policy .

Additional Admission Requirements

Individual program admission requirements over and above admission to NAU are required.

• 2 letters of recommendation
• Writing sample
• Personal statement or essay

Master's Requirements

This Master’s degree requires 36 units distributed as follows:

• Creative Writing courses: 12 units
• Supportive coursework: 12 units
• Electives chosen with your advisor’s approval: 6 to 9 units
• Thesis: 3 to 6 units (if 6 units of thesis are selected, it will reduce the number of units of electives required for the degree)
• 500- and 600-level creative writing courses, some of which may be repeated for 9 units of credit (12 units)
• Coursework in literature, literary criticism, literary theory, and/or readings in creative writing (12 units) 
• Electives chosen with your advisor's approval (6-9 units)
• ENG 699 , for the research, writing, and revision of an approved thesis. Please note: You may end up taking more than the 6 units of thesis credit you can count toward your degree because you must register for it each semester while you are working on your thesis. (3-6 units)
• Note that up to 6 units of 400-level literature courses may count toward degree, with advisor approval

Additional Information

Be aware that some courses may have prerequisites that you must also successfully complete. For prerequisite information, click on the course or see your advisor.

Campus Availability