Department Chair

AIB Foundation

"I can say with confidence that we have an outstanding Foundation Department committed to ensuring the best possible experience for all."

Arlene Grossman is very excited about the Foundation Department for which she is both chair and teacher at The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University. It is with genuine enthusiasm that she describes the department's commitment to "providing students with a core experience that combines seeing, focus and discipline with the generating and questioning of ideas, all vital to making art." Arlene explains that a "central goal of the first year experience is to engage, excite and enable students to have both the visual language and confidence to [make the] transition to their major."

A new Foundation Seminar Course was recently developed in response to a general feeling that "the curriculum was too heavily invested in developing technical proficiencies without adequately fostering creative exploration and idea development." This seminar course is "a studio class involving reading, writing, research and presentation." The class encourages students to be expansive in their thinking right from the start and "more able to present their ideas clearly, both visually and verbally."

The Foundation Department has faculty from all disciplines and departments who practice what they teach. Arlene feels it is not possible to know the issues and struggles of what one teaches without being actively involved in the subject. For Arlene, this means painting all the time. Her teaching and painting "feed into each other," increasing her confidence and enabling her to inspire confidence in her students as well.