Selectivity pays off for VCU’s sculpture department

Some might call Virginia Commonwealth University's Amy Hauft the "Queen of the Hill" as chairwoman of the sculpture department ranked No. 1 by U.S. News & World Report.

The heads of the schools nipping most persistently at Hauft's heels - Yale University (No. 2 in the rankings ), the Rhode Island School of Design (No. 3) and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (No. 4) - no doubt would love to knock Hauft off her summit and claim the hill for themselves.

Being No. 1 has its advantages, beginning with the department's intense selectivity. Just being a VCU undergraduate doesn't guarantee that a student can major in sculpture.

"Students have to apply to the department at the end of their freshman year," Hauft says. "They have to present portfolios, and then the sculpture department faculty has a selection process."

The selection of graduate students is much more rigorous.

Of the 170 to 200 student sculptors who apply each year from all over the world, only six are selected.

"The whole faculty chooses the grad students in late-night sessions that go on for weeks," says sculpture professor Elizabeth King.

The selectivity pays off big-time.

Three MFA graduates - Daisy Youngblood, Teresita Fernandez and Tara Donovan - have won coveted $500,000 "genius awards" in the MacArthur Foundation Fellows Program since 1999.

Five graduate sculpture students in the past half-dozen years have won Jacob K. Javits Fellowships, which underwrite their graduate study with annual $30,000 stipends.

The list of major awards, residencies, exhibitions (often in New York) and academic appointments for current and former graduate students is long and lustrous.

Equally important is the faculty hiring process.

The faculty currently numbers eight full-time teachers, one of which is shared with the painting department; about eight part-time teachers assigned to studio classes; and another eight part timers who teach technical skills, such as welding.

"It's absolutely crucial that the faculty be artists," Hauft says, "and we have a spectrum of artists in all different phases of their careers."

What finally puts the department over the top, many faculty members and students agree, is a spiritual quality.

"There's a charm in the VCU sculpture department," recent MFA recipient Diane Al-Hadid says by phone from Dubai, where she's working on a sculpture that was commissioned for an art exhibition there.

"Everyone is extremely valued. It's like a big family. I noticed that as soon as I arrived. The atmosphere is very supportive, but challenging, and there's enough faculty that, if you don't click with one, you can find somebody else."

King recalls her early days in the sculpture department.

"I noticed a combination of real collegiality among students and faculty on the one hand and a very competitive, demanding environment on the other hand. I had seen one or the other before, but never in the same package.

"It's a great, marvelous miracle, a generational thing. It's like sourdough bread. The kids who come in get some of that yeast from the kids who are already there, and they pass it on to the next group."

Roy Proctor, a freelance writer and theater director, retired in 2004 as the art and theater writer for The Times-Dispatch. He can be reached at .