By Miles Johnson
I am a part of every student’s curriculum. I am often at the bottom of your priorities list. Sometimes I put you to sleep. What am I?
Art history has one of the largest faculties of any department at SCAD, and yet it largely goes unnoticed as a major. Who are the art history students? How many of them are there? How do they dress?
As an art history major, even I didn’t have the answers to these questions until the spring of my junior year. I’d switched into the department as a sophomore, and had spent over a year feeling like I was the only one in the major. I was in the minority in all of my art history classes, and in many of them I was the sole art history student. All of my friends were in other disciplines. I didn’t know any in mine. Even so, I didn’t really yearn for a sense of camaraderie until I went to Lacoste.
From the description of Provence as an area overflowing with ancient treasures, I expected the Lacoste program to be brimming with art historians. I knew two art history classes were offered there each quarter, which gave further credence to my theory.
Nope.
There were two of us out of 56 total students. Painting, sequential art and architecture majors dominated the village. It wasn’t a big deal socially; I came with friends to Lacoste and made more during my stay. However, I couldn’t help but be envious of the close relationships I saw within the other majors.
The other students worked together. They spoke of teachers they’d all had and assignments that they’d hated. In a sense, they had grown up together within their departments. They’d faced similar challenges and helped one another along. I’d made progress too, but I’d done it on my own.
The nature of art history work is solitary. You labor in silence on papers and research. Typically the only one that sees your finished product is your professor. You may complete a course having no idea what your classmates have just spent the quarter researching Hopefully, everyone presents their work, but for most this is a joyless affair. There is none of the dynamism that charges a critique.
Classes, as well, are all too frequently lacking in energy. In many of them, students sit in silence while the professor lectures. There is little opportunity for bonding. Not all of the art history courses are run this way, but I’ve taken four that have. That is far too many.
Thankfully, there are a lot of art history professors who are trying to teach their classes in more of a studio format. These are the ones that have the students do all the reading at home, and reserve the classroom for pure discussion. I think this setup may irk some people who just want to come to class and relax in the dark, but it is in these courses that I’ve learned the most and felt connected to my classmates.
The Professional Practices course that I took last quarter was the one that most closely approximated the environment of a studio class. For the first time, I was in a course of all art history majors. We worked together on group presentations, we argued over theory, and we gave each other advice on our theses, a project that finally was of interest to non-majors. At last, I felt community within my department. And it only took until my second to last quarter at SCAD.
I realize that I cannot expect a non-studio program of study to behave exactly like a studio one would. I know that I probably would have felt a sense of collective spirit in my department had I not tested out of the French classes, which are teeming with art historians. But I can’t help but wish things were structured differently.
All of the art history classes should involve discussion and every one should require presentations. Classmates should peer review papers to offer their insight and produce a superior final product. These measures would not only better the students, but it would build a sense of community between them. This is crucial for the isolated art historians.
In less than two months I graduate. Looking back at SCAD, I feel a bit cheated by my major. Some of my dissatisfaction can be attributed to the nature of art history, but some of it could have been avoided. The program is currently being restructured. I can only hope that the powers that be will take a lesson from the studio departments. We can go further together than we ever could apart.
