Art History
Art History Program Learning Outcomes
1) Knowledge and History of the Canon: students learn to draw freely and knowledgeably from the historical canon, with clear knowledge of periods, their contexts, and the artworks representing the diversity of ideas defining them, in classroom discussions, public presentations, and research papers.
2) Writing Abilities: students learn to articulate ideas clearly, carry arguments cogently, demonstrate effective rhetorical persuasiveness, and synthesize claims and evidence from primary and secondary sources with their own theses.
3) Oral Presentation Abilities: students learn to articulate ideas clearly, carry arguments cogently, demonstrate effective rhetorical persuasiveness, synthesize claims and evidence from primary and secondary sources with their own theses, and design coherent and effective digital presentations of visual materials.
4) Engagement of Critical Language: students learn to use increasingly sophisticated critical terminologies and historically contextualized theories, in both oral and written presentations.
5) Historiographic and Methodological Awareness: students learn to remark on how knowledge in the discipline evolves, assess the pros and cons of different research methods in relation to specific topics, account for differing approaches to the same topic, identify the explicit and implicit assumptions of scholars, and analyze how arguments are structured to achieve various effects.
6) Research Proficiency: students learn to find appropriate primary and secondary sources in research databases, library catalogs, museum and gallery records, and archives; assess the historical and intellectual value of what they find; and engage sources critically in papers, presentations, and classroom discussions.
7) Proficiency Synthesizing Ideas: students learn to interpret texts, arguments, and rhetorical strategies; identify discourses and counter-discourses in texts; use texts as bases for their own theses and conclusions; and properly credit their sources. Direct evidence comes from papers, presentations, and classroom discussions.