Here’s a bit of welcome news for cash-strapped arts students: the BC Arts Council Scholarship program is currently taking applications for BC residents planning to attend a full-time fine arts degree or diploma program in fall 2014. For any new or returning Fine Arts students, that’s you!
BCAC is providing scholarship funding of up to $6,000 per individual per year. As long as you’re a BC resident who has been accepted for full-time studies and is pursuing a fine arts diploma or degree at a recognized college, university, institution or academy, you can apply. In fact, you can apply to attend any institution in the world; your place of study doesn’t have to be in BC.
Here’s the important part: the application deadline is April 30, 2014. Click here for complete information, guidelines and application forms.
Last year, 144 BC students shared $750,000 in scholarship funding, with their fields of creative practice ranging from music, theatre, dance and creative writing to visual arts, media arts, museology and conservation. Jury panels representing BC’s arts and culture
community evaluate applications and award scholarships.
Better still, provincial support for the BCAC Scholarship program increased in 2012-13 from $150,000 to $750,000, nearly tripling the number of scholarships awarded and increasing the maximum grant from $4,000 to $6,000.
Esi Eudgyan with her Giller Prize (photo: Chris Young/Canadian Press)
Scholarship recipients from previous years have gone on to achieve success in the arts, including Victoria native Atom Egoyan, now one of Canada’s top filmmakers, and Department of Writing alumna Esi Edugyan—now an acclaimed novelist and Giller Prize winner for Half-Blood Blues.
“BC Arts Council scholarships make great investments in the future of arts and culture in British Columbia,” says BC Arts Council chair Stan Hamilton. “The program has helped inspire many talented young British Columbians to build fulfilling careers in the arts. Their success helps British Columbia’s vibrant arts and culture community continue to achieve excellence across the full spectrum of the arts.”
Bottom line: they’ve got money to spend on arts students, but the only way to access it is to apply. Again, the application deadline is April 30, 2014. Click here for complete information, guidelines and application forms.