When Maria de Los Angeles was interviewed by the printmaking faculty at Yale last year, they noticed a line on her resume from the VAST program at Southern Oregon University and asked her about it.

“She was glowing about her time here. I always hope they’ll go home singing the praises of our town, our university and our region,” said Scott Malbaurn, director of the Schneider Museum of Art at SOU.

Malbaurn created the Visiting Artist & Scholar in Teaching (VAST) residency program through a collaboration with SOU’s Creative Arts Department in 2019 when he decided to fix the largest flaw in the Schneider Museum’s previous artist-in-residency program — it was too short.

Artists were coming for a month or so, making art, beginning to make connections and then leaving.

“We felt they should stay for a season. To give the artist time to settle in and form deeper connections with students and faculty,” he said.

Staying away from home for an entire semester presents logistical challenges for the artist, like paying rent or a mortgage. The VAST program became possible when the Creative Arts Department agreed to offer visiting artists the option to teach up to six class credits in the department. Additional funding for workshops were added on, but then the pandemic put a halt to the program.

But not before de Los Angeles had a chance to participate.

She was effusive enough about her time at SOU that after Yale hired her as assistant director of painting and printmaking, the prestigious art program came knocking at SOU.

“When we talked to Yale, I told them we would love to have MFA (Masters in Fine Arts) students apply to the VAST program,” he said.

“Yale University has the best art program, really in the world.”

The first artist from Yale — Professor Sophie Naess — will arrive on May 2 and stay with SOU until June 16.

The VAST program, now revived from its pandemic pause, is working to meet the needs of the museum, the university’s students and the visiting artists, Malbaurn explained.

Sometimes the creative arts department needs someone to fill in for a professor going on sabbatical;sometimes Malbaurn himself seeks out an artist whose work he admires or he feels might inspire SOU students. Selected artists are then invited to submit their artist statement and portfolio to be compared against other applicants. Chosen artists are then given the option to teach courses, offer workshops and structure how they will work with SOU and create art during their stay.

The invitation for Yale MFA students to apply is no guarantee, he said, even for the best arts program in the world.

Concerned the program might seem exclusive to Yale once the burgeoning relationship was announced, Malbaurn sought out other top-tier graduate programs in the arts to build relationships with them, as well.

Later this year, he will be visiting the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. He has already received a positive response from the Art Institute of Chicago.

“Every year, we have a handful of students choose to go to graduate school,” he said. “Some of them I have helped go to Pratt; I used to teach there, so I can call Pratt and say, ‘Hey be on the lookout for this application, this student is exceptional.’”

Knowing connections like these can make all the difference, and that SOU has no master’s program to offer, Malbaurn said he was particularly excited for the new opportunities Yale MFA graduates could offer SOU students.

Yale already has a practice of supporting the next steps of its MFA graduates by paying for travel to and from residencies and promoting potential residencies through partner schools, all private. SOU is the first public university Yale will promote to its MFA students.

Naess will be holding workshops open to the public during her stay in Southern Oregon, but the nature of the workshops is a project she is still working on, Malbaurn said.

To stay up to date on the latest offerings like Naess’ upcoming workshop, see sma.sou.edu.