Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University

Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University, commonly called NSCAD University, is a public art and design university in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Founded in 1887 as the Victoria School of Art and Design, with Anna Leonowens among its organizers, it grew from a municipal art school into an independent degree-granting specialist institution and later took university status. Its Fountain Campus occupies heritage buildings on Granville Street, with Port and Academy sites on the Halifax waterfront.

Teaching is grouped around fine arts, craft, design, media arts, and art history. The school is known for printmaking, ceramics, textiles, and conceptual studio practice, a direction associated with president Garry Neill Kennedy from 1967. Graduate students work in workshops, foundries, and university galleries rather than large laboratories or a teaching hospital.

Enrollment is about 800 to 1,000 students, with a small graduate cohort. Students come from across Canada and from a smaller set of other countries. Faculty are practicing artists and designers. Alumni include conceptual artist Gerald Ferguson and other figures from the Halifax art scene of the 1970s onward.

Graduate study centers on the MFA and master's work in design and art education, with studio supervision and critique on a North American semester calendar. Support often comes through assistantships and provincial awards. Students live and work in downtown Halifax, using waterfront studios and the city's galleries as the immediate setting.

In the Grad School Navigator directory, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University lists 1 master's program, in film & filmmaking.