The low-residency MFA: coast to coast and across the border - Writing creative writing programs

Writing Creative Writing: Essays from the Field - Rishma Dunlop, Daniel Scott Tysdal, Priscila Uppal 2016

The low-residency MFA: coast to coast and across the border
Writing creative writing programs

LORI A. MAY

Since the low-residency Master of Fine Arts (MFA) model was first developed in the 1970s, its proliferation has expanded to nearly sixty such programs. These are predominantly offered in the United States, with less than 10 percent offered by international institutions. Canada has just two low-residency MFA programs: the University of British Columbia (UBC) launched its optional-residency multi-genre program in 2005, and the University of King’s College in Halifax launched its creative non-fiction program in 2013. Like the more traditional counterpart, a low-residency MFA is a terminal degree; students focus on craft and creative development, yet they also exit the program with qualifications to teach writing at the college level. The low-res model includes intensive workshops, assigned readings and analysis, exposure to publishing professionals, and the culmination of a creative thesis. The only difference in the low-residency MFA, then, is in how the program is delivered.

Low-residency programs offer a two-part model: term work is completed at a distance through packet exchanges with a mentor and/or in online or hybrid delivery, and programs range between two and three years of study; residencies, most often ranging between eight and twelve days, take place once or twice a year wherein faculty and students convene for intensive in-person instruction, workshops, and professional development sessions. Most programs begin each term with a residency to develop personal connections, as well as to inform and prepare students for the intensive term ahead. To continue the camaraderie established during residency, term work generally includes email and online forum discussions to allow for critiques, faculty mentoring, and peer interaction. Additionally, some faculty will consult with students over the phone or via Skype to enhance their mentor-student connection.

The appeal of the low-residency model is in its flexibility — for students and for institutions. Student-writers are able to benefit from the same level of intensive study as in an on-campus program without sacrificing their established lives, as relocation is not necessary. “Many writers simply cannot leave their homes, families, and jobs to take a full-time graduate residential MFA program,” says Andrew Gray, founder of UBC’s Optional-Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing.

While self-discipline is a must for the low-residency student, the challenge of balancing personal and academic activities provides solid preparation for the future writer. “There can be a temptation to treat distance education courses more casually since there is not a classroom where you have to be at a set time every week, and the distractions of the real world can be hard to ignore,” Gray says. “Residential MFA programs are fairly artificial environments. In many ways, distance education students are more prepared for the continuing work required after graduation.” After all, few writers rely exclusively on writing for their livelihoods; the ability to continue one’s artistic pursuits amid a busy life of work and family is a skill honed in a low-residency program.

Institutions also benefit from increased flexibility with program delivery. The low-residency MFA uses campus space during off-peak times when residencies may utilize empty classrooms and dorms. “We’re a small university with a small campus,” says Stephen Kimber, professor in the School of Journalism at the University of King’s College in Halifax and one of the low-residency program co-founders. “It would be very difficult, given our facilities, to add a new program that would require classrooms and labs during the regular school term. From a practical point of view we’re making better use of those facilities in the summer season.”

The model also allows for innovations previously unheard of in academia. For example, the Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA Program, formerly offered by the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts (NILA) in Coupeville, Washington, was the first program to be offered outside of a college or university and instead by a non-profit writing organization. NILA was nationally accredited by the Distance Education and Training Council (DETC), an agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. “Stepping outside the university had never been done before in an MFA program in creative writing,” says former program director Wayne Ude. “We wanted to have a program designed by writers for writers.”

Such flexibility is perhaps responsible for the proliferation of programs not only in the United States, but across the world. More and more programs are incorporating an international component to attract enrolment and heighten the student experience. New York University (NYU), for example, recently launched the MFA Writers Workshop in Paris, a two-year program that hosts residencies exclusively in Paris, while conducting the term work with NYU-based instructors. Arcadia University in Pennsylvania includes a study-abroad residency in locations such as Scotland and Italy, and Spalding University in Kentucky offers the option of taking part in international residencies held in France, England, Italy, and elsewhere.

Yet there are only two low-residency programs in Canada. Andrew Gray says he proposed the optional-residency program at UBC because he saw “the need for a low-residency program with greater flexibility than many of the existing programs out there.” Stephen Kimber says the development of the new program in Halifax allows the university to capitalize on what it has historically offered. “Pedagogically, we’re a liberal arts university that specializes in the humanities and journalism, which we believe is also an ideal combination for creative non-fiction.” The University of King’s College program focuses exclusively on narrative non-fiction, “including all its many and various offshoots — from memoir to literary journalism to travel writing to biography to historical non-fiction.”

Considering the proliferation of low-residency programs across the world, it may be time for Canadian institutions to take advantage of the open opportunity. Xu Xi is a former chair of the Low-Residency MFA Directors’ Caucus for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP). “I believe there is still potential for growth, especially for programs with an international focus. Canada is certainly a likely location, as are Australia and Europe and Asia,” she says. “The MFA as a degree in creative writing is still relatively unknown outside of the U.S. Universities are cumbersomely bureaucratic by nature, and the larger the institution, the more difficult it is to introduce anything new.”

To aid in the development and successful administration of a low-residency program, AWP recently established a resource, “AWP Hallmarks of an Effective Low-Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing,” which — in addition to the “program directors’ Handbook” — is free and accessible to the public on the organization’s website (www.awpwriter.org). The document offers aspirational and best-practices information regarding curriculum, delivery modes, faculty selection and mentoring practices, student selection, student and administrative support, and supplementary infrastructure.

Administrators and approving bodies may find the delivery of creative writing distance workshops and courses unfamiliar, if not intimidating. Planning must include a reasonable outline of faculty and student expectations, for which the AWP Hallmarks can help in defining best practices. Gray says UBC wanted to ensure that they were able to serve the students while not exhausting instructors. “Online teaching ended up being more complex and more time-consuming than we’d originally presumed,” he says, “and we’ve had to work to manage the workload of both students and faculty.” A common misconception is that distance education is somehow less work for everyone involved; thus, new directors sometimes over-program to ensure students receive the education they deserve. While an on-campus class that meets three hours per week is contained within that timeframe, students and faculty in asynchronous online courses offered by low-res programs tend to carry on discussions beyond that perimeter. Trial and error indicates where some activities can be trimmed back while still offering a full academic workload. For online components, this means balancing the frequency of required peer interaction and forum discussion alongside creative thesis development.

“If there is one word that faculty and instructors need to remember regarding teaching and curriculum, it’s flexibility,” adds Don Sedgwick, co-founder and former executive director of the King’s program. “We are teaching a form of craft, which has its many disciplines. But we are also teaching art, and this is where the learning becomes even more complicated. Like books, no two writers are alike. When you multiply this factor by the size of the entire class, you need to figure out when to add more content to a particular teaching module, or possibly to replace classroom time with reflective time for the students. They can get overloaded by information; they need time for processing. Similarly, the timing on a ’feedback loop’ is always an approximation for a particular student — and possibly for an entire class. The amount of discussion needed for a group of memoirists versus essay writers is likely to be vastly different. For all these reasons, we need to expect change in the curriculum delivery, and be prepared to accommodate the writers’ needs on the fly. In short, plan with care, and then be flexible enough to change as needed.”

For any program, there are kinks and roadblocks to overcome, but Gray has found the work worth the effort. “The program has proceeded surprisingly close to our expectations,” he says, “which, in looking back, were perhaps naively optimistic considering nobody had done one of these in Canada before, and since we were also breaking new ground in the way we ran the courses as workshops rather than mentorships. We are roughly where we expected to be in size and organization.”

Size — pertaining to faculty, student enrolment, and course offerings — is a major point that determines the success of a low-residency program. Most low-residency programs pair up one faculty member for every two to five students for the term-long courses and mentorships. That number plays a role in ensuring student attention, but also determines faculty needs and, thus, acts as a guideline for maximum acceptance rates.

The residency experience is indeed what many students look forward to in their programs, as this is where close friendships first develop and intensive mentor consultations take place. Low-residency programs range between two and three years of full-time study, so the residencies that occur once or twice a year are important for bridging the time spent via distance communications. Yet it’s the distance aspect that works for students and appeals to writers with other life commitments. Stephen Kimber says low-residency students “will probably be slightly older than your average grad student,” which adds to the diversity of the student population; these are also likely writers who never imagined the ability or possibility of graduate studies, given their commitments elsewhere. Through online workshops and distance communication, students have the unique ability to participate any time of day and from the comfort of their home, office, or public library.

Gray says that “many of our students have become great friends without meeting in person. The online community is available for all students, and they continue to have access after graduation, as long as they want.”

Programs may also consider what may give them the competitive edge over other institutions. Low-residency MFAs are becoming more competitive in offering pedagogical training and publishing internships for students who wish to use the graduate experience not only for their own writing development, but to increase job marketability. As an example, Spalding University in Kentucky offers a teaching curriculum, Wilkes University in Pennsylvania includes a mandatory publishing or teaching internship as part of its MFA program, and Oklahoma City University offers pedagogy and publishing strands. The optional-residency program at UBC recently added the Teaching Creative Writing course to meet student demand. In addition to discussion of theory and practice, students have the option of putting into practice their knowledge in a community-based teaching practicum. Students keep in touch throughout the practicum to share experiences, seek advice, and report on their completed work.

Even established authors often opt for a low-residency education: working writers most often do not have the time or flexibility to attend a full-time, campus-based program.

“On a similar note, many writers work in isolation,” says Don Sedgwick. “It’s the nature of the profession. At some point, often in mid-career, they need to step up their game and make deeper connections with the publishing industry. This is difficult to achieve without someone to open the doors to publishing houses, literary agents, and the host of other facilitators within the often closed-wall world of the media industry. The MFA at King’s brings the student to — and through — the doors of the industry by delivering publishing professionals right to the classroom. Indeed, in the January residences in Toronto and New York, the students will literally be in the offices of publishers.”

Most low-residency programs offer opportunities to make personal connections with editors and agents through their intensive residency programming. Guest speakers are brought in to discuss contemporary publishing concerns, and this is usually complemented by practice pitch sessions or one-on-one manuscript evaluations. During the term at home, students fine-tune their manuscripts with their faculty mentors so when the time comes to mingle with professionals, students are prepared to do so with confidence.

Such hands-on professional direction is hard to come by and, as Don Sedgwick says, is one of the reasons working writers pursue a low-residency MFA. Between residency sessions designed to prepare students for publication, and for the professional connections made in and outside of programs, writers who otherwise wouldn’t be able to return to school are finding it possible to live out their dreams with the low-residency option.

With success stories and flexibility to its credit, why aren’t more Canadian institutions embracing the low-residency MFA model? The geographic sprawl of the nation allows, even encourages, success with distance education. “There are many workshop models and different kinds of MFAs, but the expertise for faculty tends to be American trained and American,” Xu Xi says. “But other countries have their own literatures.” The proliferation of MFA programs is not only evidenced in the United States, though. Institutions in the United Kingdom and elsewhere are recognizing the opportunity — and ensuring it’s not a missed opportunity for their domestic students.

“Based on my own conversations with students,” Kimber says, “we are losing significant numbers of good students to creative writing programs in the U.S., and England as well. That’s not to say some of them wouldn’t have decided to study elsewhere anyway, but there should be more Canadian alternatives for them to consider.”

Consider this: according to the AWP website, the number of MFA ­programs — low- and full-residency —essentially doubled in ten years. In 2002, there were 99 MFA programs listed as members of AWP, and in 2012 that number was 191. As of this writing, there are now 222 member MFA programs. Compare that to the mid-seventies, when the first low-residency program launched in the United States, and there were a mere 15 MFA programs in existence. The growth is staggering. Yes, there may be a cap on how far the model can expand, but there is certainly room for development in Canada.

“I think there’s definitely a demand,” Stephen Kimber says, noting his anecdotal evidence from student applicants. Andrew Gray agrees and adds that low-residency programs not only attract domestic students, but also “students from all over the world, and in some ways your competition is global when you create a program. New programs will have to differentiate themselves and make a compelling case to attract students. That said, international programs are expensive, and Canadians definitely appreciate the ability to study domestically with the funding, loan, and cost differentials that usually result.”

Finances are a necessary consideration for everyone, but potential program developers may find relief in knowing the low-residency model is most often self-sustaining. Stephen Kimber explains that the salary of the director and the costs of writing mentors are covered by tuition revenues. The institution already has full-time faculty in place, so mentors that work one-on-one with students during the thesis are “hired on a sessional basis and remunerated based on the number of students they supervise per semester.” Most low-residency programs in existence also bring in special guests and publishing professionals during residencies to offer workshops, panels, and informal talks, but the cost is minimal and generally offered as a flat fee for speakers. Residencies pose little additional overhead cost, Kimber adds, as “the program will utilize the university residences during a period when they would otherwise be idle.”

Considering the minimal overhead, with no dedicated classrooms required during the year, a low-residency program may focus its finances more on delivering quality distance education and in hiring faculty who enhance marketability and student interest. “When we started the program,” Andrew Gray says, “there was support for new programs at our university if they were self-supporting and operated almost like small businesses within the university. We were able to set our own tuition rates arbitrarily, based on our business case and the marketplace.” Gray adds that the optional-residency program was viable quickly, but that was in part due to their large proportion of adjunct faculty.

In a challenging economic climate, graduate programs may not be a university priority as they provide smaller enrolment numbers than undergraduate classes. Yet, for those institutions eager to expand their offerings, the low-residency MFA program can prove a viable and self-sustaining choice, and one that perhaps helps retain Canada’s writing students.

“The conclusion I kept coming to,” says Xu Xi, “was that the low-res was actually a very sustainable financial model for, in particular, medium to large universities with a strong technology infrastructure.” She adds that some programs actually result in profits — which may certainly attract administrators and approving bodies. “But the caveat,” she says, “is institutional leadership and vision. Unless a university is progressive in outlook, the low-res model will come up against bureaucratic challenges that are more daunting than financial. In my mind, the financial viability is not the biggest challenge for low-res MFAs housed within an institution — unless of course the director is unusually extravagant.”

One thing for certain administrators understand, however, is numbers. With the proliferation of low-residency MFA programs in the United States and across the globe growing to unprecedented numbers, isn’t it time Canada takes advantage of this area of growth? For institutions looking for ways to enhance their program offerings and attract a new student demographic, the low-residency MFA may offer a viable and engaging solution. With brief residencies offered each year, and two to three years of distance mentoring, workshops, and peer development, student-writers are reaping the rewards across the border. Why lose domestic students to international programs when their needs and the demand may be met closer to home? The University of British Columbia and the University of King’s College have paved the way and demonstrate the potential for success. Who will be next?