Mississippi University for Women this fall is offering its first-ever classes in a new low-residency master of fine arts in creative writing.
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges approved the program as part of the scope of current accreditation, reaffirmed for the university last year. In its inaugural year, the MFA program, unique in Mississippi, has 11 students enrolled.
Formal approval from SACSCOC is the culmination of a two-year process that began in 2014 with permission to plan granted by the state Institutions of Higher Learning.
“This is a 48-hour program that can be completed in two to three years, or longer for part-time students,” said Dr. Kendall Dunkelberg, program director.
Students take online classes, combined with two types of brief residency classes, short (1-hour) hands-on courses or full residency courses (2 hours) that include intense workshop sessions and seminars on the profession of creative writing.
In addition to Dunkelberg, three visiting faculty members will teach five fall-semester courses: graduate poetry workshop, graduate fiction workshop, writing for new media, forms of drama, and the first short residency in writing, to be held at The W in conjunction with the Oct. 22-24 Eudora Welty Writers’ Symposium.
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