Student Body Shots: On Low Residency MFA Programs

I've spent the last two years getting my MFA in creative writing from Bennington College, one of the first low residency MFA programs in the country and one of the most esteemed. I haven't talked much about the experience here or in other places but now that I've graduated and have a little distance, I thought I'd talk a bit about the path I took and about MFA programs in general. Of course my experience is a bit different than most folks since I entered the program with five published books...and, well, I also direct the MFA program at UCR's Palm Desert campus.

I'm the first one to tell anyone that you do not need an MFA to be a writer and of course I didn't have an MFA prior to publishing now seven (and soon to be eight when Other Resort Cities comes out in October) books, dozens of stories, countless book reviews, essays, feature stories etc. And in fact for many years I thought the idea of getting one myself was silly. What more did I possibly need to learn? What prompted me to get my MFA finally was that I'd spent the previous decade teaching at various universities and found that I loved to teach, could see myself doing it for as long as anyone would let me...and that if I wanted that to remain the case, I'd need a terminal degree to go along with my novels and stories. At the same time, my wife Wendy decided that she wanted to get an MFA for the conventional purpose of dedicating two years to writing. When we started looking into programs -- around the winter of 2006 -- we looked at both traditional programs and low residency ones. Neither Wendy nor I really wanted to move to, say, Michigan, not least of all because I was already teaching at UCR and UCLA, plus the idea of being in school three days a week simply didn't seem tenable to either of us, no matter the locale. The upside, however, was that traditional programs offered significant financial packages which, if accepted, would end up paying us to go to graduate school, particularly attractive since we'd just paid off our old undergrad student loans. But, nevertheless, neither of us wanted to move and leave the jobs/lives we already had.  So, the next easiest step was to investigate the low residency programs.

The writer Aimee Liu, coincidentally, had just graduated from Bennington and when I told her about what we were planning, she told me we had to apply to Bennington and that it would be a fantastic experience. Later, another writer, Andrea Siegel, told me that she thought it would be a good thing for us, with a few caveats (namely the food and the beds on campus). I was already familiar with Bennington, having sent several former UCLA Extension students there over the years and the opportunity to work with Amy Hempel and David Gates was very appealing to me -- particularly since after looking at many of the low residency programs, it was difficult to find a program that wasn't filled with either  faculty I was already friendly with (like, say, Antioch, which employed so many of my friends that I immediately opted not to apply) or faculty that wasn't as qualified as I was to teach the class I'd be taking (and yes, I know, this is so profoundly narcissistic as to be bordering on the insane, but it was a real consideration for me as I didn't want to be in a class with someone who I didn't respect). Plus, I wanted to make sure I went to a college that wasn't merely a diploma factory (the number of odd little low residency programs that have popped up is pretty striking) but that had a rich history of turning out esteemed writers or was located at a very strong university. Bennington fit the bill perfectly. 

As luck would have it, Wendy and I both got accepted -- Wendy first, me a week later -- and off we went in the summer of 2007. For the next two years, we visited Bennington five times, thankfully only twice in the winter, and I'd say overall it was a very positive experience, and one that for me was fairly easy. You're expected to write 25 pages of creative work each month along with about 15 pages of critical work (essays on the books you've read, essentially). Since I had books under contract to write, along with a short story collection I was writing at the same time, 25 pages of creative work was no problem. The critical work, derived from the reading list you set up at the beginning of each term, was more challenging from a time perspective as I already read probably three books a month for various publications for book review purposes. Adding another five books and 15 pages of writing to my life was invariably what caused me to feel inordinate amounts of monthly stress. 

In terms of criticism from the professors, I got the most valuable instruction from Lynne Sharon Schwartz. She opened up avenues of thought for me in regards to my stories that was entirely new -- in essence, she told me that I already had good stories, but that together we could make them great stories, and that if I was willing to work hard on them, she'd give me all she could. And I listened. And she was right. Her insight was invaluable and the resulting stories, most of which ended up in Other Resort Cities, not only improved the stories, but improved me as a writer. I thought I was done learning and Lynne taught me that a long career in writing means constant growth.

Part of my initial issue while in the program had to do with my own sizable ego -- namely, that it was hard for me to get notes on my stories from other students in class who I  didn't think knew what they were talking about, writers whose own work was riddled with poor craft and missing drama. I had to remind myself that I was no different than they were; that we'd both been accepted into the same writing program, that whatever was notable in my work had to have a correlation to their own, even if I didn't see it. After spending so long teaching writing workshops, I had to remind myself that I wasn't in charge, that I was just a writing student again and that it was important to get the notes from these very sentient readers, regardless of what I might think about their own work. The issue that I continued to have, however, was the lack of actual craft that was taught at Bennington. The problem often with the low residency model is that there's simply not enough teaching time -- or, well, at least there isn't in the case of the programs that rely solely on the ten day residency period and the one-to-one mentor relationship that exists primarily via standard mail as Bennington does. In residency, there are daily lectures but I found many of them not so much lectures as a person standing up and reading an essay. Literally reading, most of the time, which just isn't a real vibrant way to teach writing, and which doesn't provide stimulation for the writing student who is struggling with some core issue (like, say, dialog or setting etc.) and certainly doesn't invite interruption and conversation. I can read an essay, but when I'm being taught, I crave interaction and example. The workshops are instructive, certainly, but because of the time constraint, the teaching moments are compact. The packet process, which is once a month, is helpful in terms of the work itself but also doesn't really allow for a lot of interaction on the craft of the work. It's a read and react process, which I think works well for people who perhaps come into a program already well versed, but which I think can be counterproductive to those who really need instruction. It's where traditional programs have a distinct advantage over some low residency programs. I don't believe, as I've said before, that writing can be taught per se, but I feel like talent can be steered and talent can be instructed on how to best tell a story. You can't teach talent, but you can provide a path. This was a complaint I made early and often during my time at Bennington and, over the course of the last year, it seems like they've started to focus more on craft and in making subtle changes to their model subsequent to the death of the program's founder, Liam Rector.

[Personally, what I saw in relation to this teaching method at Bennington really shaped the way I ended up designing the UCR low residency, so that residency happens after a full quarter of online instruction with your professor and where you are encouraged to be in more direct contact with your professor (by email, by Blackboard, by phone, etc.) because I want the students in the program to not only get critiqued, but also get formal instruction. Likewise, we do a lot of professional development at residency in addition to workshops and seminars, bringing editors, agents and studio executives because I want my students to have a clear idea of where they will land after school concludes.] 

What Bennington does especially well is that it creates a community of writers where a great deal of the learning happens casually between faculty and students while they sit on the lawn, or at the student center, or during the communal meals. It's an intensive time and it's only after that you realize that some of the best teaching moments -- the best learning moments -- are when you're not in a formal setting at all. The dorm living is also inspiring in that you end up making intense and lasting friendships with the people in your class, who, it turns out, also end up teaching you a great deal.

My belief, as a writer, as a professor, as a new MFA, is that the low residency model is actually a far better approximation of what it is actually like to be a professional writer, where you have to juggle real life and writing. Traditional MFA programs provide an equally intensive experience, certainly, but in a way it's a real halcyon time for most students where they suspend real life in order to immerse themselves in academia, where their social life, their academic life, their business life, is all housed in the same place for two years. It works, certainly, and I think for younger writers specifically it's probably the best way to achieve the degree. But for someone with a career, a home, etc. the low residency is not unlike working as a freelance writer where you chase deadlines while maybe pulling 40 hours a week at some dreadful job -- the difference being that in the end you have 30K in debt vs. a nice bundle of freelance money. But it's also about self reliance -- you have to work one on one with the professor and drive yourself to work vs. being in a weekly classroom workshop that forces you week by week to be ready. My sense is that in the next twenty years, as the cost of education rises (both from a student and administrative angle), you'll see more low residency programs because of the low cost and high return. Already you see this in MBA programs (and in fact MBAs were the first models for the subsequent creative writing programs) but it also makes a lot of sense for other arts programs, particularly since new online learning platforms are making the fine arts easier now to teach virtually. But I really believe the residency period is the absolute key here - it's where the students bond with their professors and with each other. The challenge for all of these new programs is how to create the same dynamic that Bennington has achieved, which is that after two years you feel like a part of something larger than yourself, which invariably means you end up with a kind of brand loyalty (as witnessed by the fifteen shirts, sweatshirts and baseball caps I have that say Bennington on them, but also by the number of alumni who return to campus each year and the odd protective feeling I suddenly have for the program, even while I run a program that I hope to position as a new take on a model they've perfected). 

Finally, I'm still of the opinion that you do not need an MFA to be a writer. But I think what MFA programs provide, and specifically low residency programs, is an intensive opportunity to actually write and receive focused instruction on your art. An apprentice period, essentially, that allows for those with real talent the chance to hone their work. I think, too, the low residency MFAs end up producing less familiar workshop-y stories since most of the work is done in solitude and outside the group think of the worst workshop experiences. (That's not to say I think workshops are bad, only that it can take a writer a good long time to figure out how to spot their own issues when they become overly dependent on the opinions of others...which are usually correct...).  I learned a great deal over the course of my two years, though it was more of a personal growth than an empirical one, which I guess is normally called life experience or something like that, and perhaps that's the true measure of a program, whether or not the people come out of it altered for the better. 

Comments

[whit]

I think you've hit the program's value on the nose, but I also just like telling everyone that my degree is "terminal."

[Laurel Saville]

A wonderful synopsis of the value and limitations of the program. It's a great 'answer' for all those people who ask me what the value of an MFA is. Thanks! And thanks to Whit for posting the link.

[andreaa]

i can't believe that i said something about the food. this perplexes me. maybe you wrote me before i started eating pie and fruit crumbles.

[bree]

I was also going to mention Andrea's comment about the food- I had thought she always liked the food. We would look forward to hamburger and grilled cheese night. Oh and pasta night had wonderful garlic bread!

Also, the reason you have so many Bennington shirts and such is because it was always so unexpectedly fucking cold in June. I know it's why I own two Bennington sweatshirts. The coffee mug I bought to drink my wine out of though. And I can't find it. I loved that mug.

[Lou Hullabaloo, Ph.D.]

It doesn't matter how hard you strike, or even how accurately, but how often . . . .

[Elizabeth Crane]

Wow, Tod, this is really great, I was going to make several comments but there ended up being too many, and now I need to go take a nap.

[bobo fett]

hmmmm...i might have a slightly different take on your perspective but i understand the origin.

[Stephanie]

Excellent, excellent post.

[Debby G]

Thanks for the informative, honest post.

[randy foye]

i'm going to send this to my family and friends, who even after i show them my degree they call it poetry camp

[Gay A]

Now I understand what my nephew went through and why we thought he was MIA for 2 years. He is a changed person for it!

[Weston Ochse]

I felt many of the same things you did, especially when it came to critiques from students I felt weren't...you know..because I has been published, won awards, etc. But like you I forced myself to read them with an open mind and actually discovered some things about my writing that I didn't know. I graduated from the National University MFA program and was stunned at the amount of work. I had novels and several novellas contracted during the year and a half that I took the program, but forced myself to write straight literary fiction for all of my assignments. The result, I think, of stepping outside my genre comfort zone was the development and honing of literary style that was new and unique to me. For if nothing else than the terminal degree, the ability to concentrate on writing new and different was the best part; especially the screenwriting and creative non-fiction tracks. Thanks Tod.

[Rebecca Walker]

Fabulous post. About to begin low-res with five books published and two under contract and I'm still not sure I'm doing the right thing. But like you, I love teaching, and I'd like to teach in one place for a long time--to set down roots with my family and settle in to write a few books I can't seem to get to while juggling reviews, speaking gigs, pieces for the glossies, blogging. etc. The UCR program looks great, btw. I'd love to be a visiting artist and visit Miracle Manor on the weekend!

[Anne Elliott]

Thanks, Tod. This is thoughtful, frank, and helpful.