Faculty quality is one of the most important and most difficult factors to evaluate when comparing art schools. This RISD vs Parsons vs CalArts faculty comparison examines what each school’s faculty model looks like, what kinds of practitioners teach at each institution, and how to think about faculty as a factor in choosing where to study.
What Makes Art School Faculty Excellent
Before comparing faculty at specific schools, it is worth establishing what excellent art school faculty actually means. In the context of studio art and design education, the most valuable faculty are those who are actively engaged in their own creative practice — making work, showing it, building careers — while simultaneously being skilled teachers and mentors. Faculty who have retired into teaching without maintaining active practices tend to be less useful to developing artists and designers than those who are currently navigating the same creative challenges their students face.
Each of the three schools in this comparison has developed a faculty model that reflects its institutional identity. Understanding those models is more useful than trying to rank faculty quality abstractly.
RISD Faculty: Practitioners with Institutional Roots
RISD’s faculty model combines established artists and designers with long-term institutional commitments alongside visiting practitioners who bring current industry perspective. Many RISD faculty have taught at the school for years or decades, developing deep knowledge of the curriculum and student community. This continuity produces a stable, experienced teaching environment that students can rely on across their four years.
RISD faculty are typically working practitioners — showing work in galleries, maintaining design practices, publishing — alongside their teaching. The school’s emphasis on craft and material knowledge is reflected in faculty who have developed deep expertise in specific disciplines. Critics at RISD include visiting practitioners who provide current industry perspective to supplement the core faculty’s institutional knowledge.
Parsons Faculty: Industry Professionals in New York
Parsons’s faculty model is explicitly professional — the school prioritizes hiring working professionals rather than primarily academic practitioners. In design disciplines, this means faculty who are currently employed or recently employed in the New York design industry: working graphic designers, fashion industry professionals, UX designers, and related practitioners. In fine arts, faculty tend to be artists who are actively showing work and participating in the New York art world.
The advantage of this model is currency: Parsons faculty bring knowledge of what the current industry values, what skills are in demand, and how professional practice actually works in New York. The limitation is that professional practitioners are not always the best teachers — industry expertise does not automatically translate into pedagogical skill.
CalArts Faculty: Independent Artists with Strong Practices
CalArts’s faculty model is the most distinctive of the three. The school specifically recruits artists and designers whose own practices are genuinely experimental and independent — people who have built careers as artists rather than as designers or academics. Many CalArts faculty have international reputations as artists in their own right, and the school’s culture values this independence explicitly.
The CalArts faculty relationship with students is also distinctive: faculty at CalArts are more explicitly mentors and creative interlocutors than instructors of specific skills. The school’s self-directed model means that faculty spend more time in sustained one-on-one engagement with students than in structured instruction.
RISD vs Parsons vs CalArts Faculty: Comparison
| Factor | RISD | Parsons | CalArts |
| Faculty Model | Stable practitioners + institutional depth | Industry professionals in NYC | Independent artists + mentors |
| Teaching Style | Studio instruction + critique | Professional training + industry critique | Mentorship + creative dialogue |
| Practice Type | Working artists + designers | Industry professionals | Independent experimental artists |
| Visiting Critics | Significant visiting program | Active visiting program | Strong visiting artist program |
| Continuity | High — long-term faculty | Mixed — some turnover | Moderate |
| Best For | Craft, material disciplines | Professional design practice | Experimental, self-directed work |
How Faculty Should Factor into Your Decision
Rather than trying to determine which school has the best faculty in the abstract, Korean students should research the specific faculty in their intended department at each school. Most art schools publish faculty lists with bios and links to their practices. A student considering RISD Graphic Design should look at the faculty roster, read their bios, and look at their work — the same for Parsons Communication Design and CalArts Graphic Design.
The faculty whose work and approach most resonates with your own creative direction is a stronger signal than any general ranking. Royal Blue helps students research faculty as part of the school selection process.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can students request specific faculty as advisors at these schools?
The degree to which students can choose or request specific faculty advisors varies by school and program. CalArts’s mentorship model provides more direct student choice in faculty relationships. RISD and Parsons typically assign students to faculty based on program structure, with some ability to seek out specific faculty for critiques and independent study.
Does having famous faculty improve student outcomes?
Faculty fame does not automatically translate into teaching effectiveness. Some of the most celebrated artists are not the most useful teachers. What matters for student development is the quality of the pedagogical relationship — how well a faculty member can identify what a student needs and provide appropriate guidance. The most useful faculty are not always the most famous.
How do visiting critics contribute to faculty quality?
All three schools run active visiting critic programs that bring additional practitioners into the studio for reviews and critiques. These visits provide exposure to current practice and diverse perspectives that complement the core faculty. For students, visiting critics are opportunities to connect with practitioners outside the regular faculty.
Which school has the most internationally recognized faculty?
CalArts has the highest proportion of faculty with significant international reputations as independent artists. Yale MFA would be the strongest comparison point if prestige of faculty reputation is the primary criterion. Among RISD, Parsons, and CalArts, CalArts’s faculty have the most consistent independent artist reputation.
Should Korean students consider faculty when choosing between these schools?
Yes — but specifically, not generally. Research the faculty in your specific intended department, not the school’s overall reputation. The faculty you will actually work with in your specific program is what matters, not the average quality of the entire faculty roster.
Royal Blue Art & Design is a US art school admissions academy in Apgujeong, Seoul, with 19 years of experience helping Korean students gain acceptance to RISD, Parsons, CalArts, and other top programs. Contact us → royalblue-art.com