Session: Getting with the Program: Curricular Redesign in Art History

This paper profiles the curricular redesign currently underway in the art history program at St. Catherine University (hereafter St. Kate’s), a small Catholic liberal arts college for women in St. Paul, Minnesota. As a progressive institution committed to social justice, St. Kate’s educates women to lead and influence. Changing demographics of who our students are, how they learn, and what they have to offer drive a reimagination of what art history is and its possible futures. The current curricular redesign jettisons the bloated traditional model in favor of a leaner course of study that is site-specific, interdisciplinary, malleable, and student-centered. For example, in a new writing-intensive course called Art and Power, students work with local museum collections and community partners to interrogate the colonialist roots of the field while foregrounding a more “loving perception” (María Lugones) toward the art object and its histories. Another new course, called A History of Art, excavates the decommissioned university slide collection for absent and counternarratives that engage in institutional critique. Whereas the new program teaches some of the basic tools and tenets of the field (i.e. formal analysis and the canon), it simultaneously interrogates those very tools and tenets to make space for something new to emerge. Bespoke advising, high-impact practices, and integrated learning experiences with students in the studio art program also characterize the new program. Ultimately, this student-centered curriculum favors a culture of inquiry and collaboration over mastery and competition while centering anti-racist approaches to teaching and organizing for social change.