For centuries the visual arts were taught and learned through private instruction and apprenticeship. Their arrival in school and the general curriculum came much later.

Benjamin Franklin proposed including the arts in his 1749 pamphlet outlining the ideal education for Pennsylvania’s youth. Franklin’s thoughts about pedagogy were well ahead of his time. He believed that students learned best by practicing the disciplines they studied, and he recognized the value of art in the curriculum.

“As to their STUDIES, it would be well if they could be taught every Thing that is useful, and every Thing that is ornamental: But Art is long, and their Time is short. It is therefore propos’d that they learn those Things that are likely to be most useful and most ornamental. Regard being had to the several Professions for which they are intended.”[1]

Fundamental art instruction was first introduced in U.S. public schools in 1821, but sputtered along for decades. Massachusetts was the first to mandate art instruction state-wide in 1870.[2]

An exhibit of Massachusetts students’ work at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition catalyzed national interest in expanding art education. The World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 heightened the nation’s awareness of contemporary arts practices from around the world and led to the development of more diverse and functional art materials. The St. Louis Exposition of 1904, the Jamestown Exposition of 1907, and the San Francisco and San Diego Expositions of 1915 successively lifted up the connection between art and practical instruction.[3]

Professional art training was governed by guilds in Medieval Europe as painters, sculptors, and other artists were seen as tradespeople. The first art academies arose in Renaissance Europe. The Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture was founded in Paris in 1648, and the London Royal Academy was founded in 1768. The painter, Joshua Reynolds was its first president.[4]

The first professional art school in the United States was the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, which was founded in 1805 by the painter, Charles Wilson Peale and the sculptor, William Rush. It remains a leading arts school and museum.

A number of other art schools followed. These include the Cooper Union (1859), the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1866/1882), Rhode Island School of Design (1877), Pratt Institute (1887), and Parsons School of Design (1896).

The College Art Association was founded in 1911 and remains the leading national organization for the visual arts in higher education. Following World War II and the implementation of the G.I. Bill, colleges and universities quickly became the training grounds for artists.[5]

By the 1960s fine arts courses became standard in the general education curricula of most undergraduate degree programs.

Today’s students are probably the most visually engaged generation, and they are certainly more visually facile than their predecessors. Contemporary media are driven by imagery, and we must continue to provide our students with the tools to understand and interpret what they see as well as the ability to contextualize images within history and culture.

This literacy will allow them to be wise consumers and producers of visual material, and as AI occupies an increasing footprint in our visual world, the visual world, these challenges will become exponentially more complex.

[1] From Benjamin Franklin: Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsilvania. Philadelphia: 1749.

[2] W.G. Whitford: “Brief History of Art Education in the United States,” The Elementary School Journal, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Oct. 1923), p. 109.

[3] Op. cit. pp.111-112.

[4] https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/a/academy

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_education_in_the_United_States

This evening, I joined members of the College Democrats and College Republicans to place a group of flags in front of the Degenstein Campus Center in anticipation of tomorrow’s remembrance of those who died in the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

When I arrived, I mentioned that this is the first year since that sad day when almost none of our traditional-aged students were born at the time of the event. A couple of the students said they had been thinking the same thing, and they asked me a number of questions that reminded me of the kinds of questions I asked my parents and grandparents about President Kennedy’s assassination and the attack on Pearl Harbor.

My strongest memories of 9/11 are tied to the campus where I was working at the time. The day of the attacks, I arrived at the Sweet Briar College campus as the plane hit the second tower. My mother was coming to visit me on campus, but I headed home to Greensboro to be with my wife, and I left a note for my mom. She was detoured around Somerset, PA where flight 93 had crashed, and eventually joined us in North Carolina.

We spent the first day tracking down family and students in New York and DC. We were lucky as everyone we sought was eventually accounted for. After that, I returned to campus, and my colleagues and I spent the next few weeks trying to help our students and each other process what had happened.

The students planting flags today asked good questions. The one that struck me most was if it were true that people really came together in the aftermath. As we know, for a little while they did. Common causes and shared experiences have that effect.

What struck me this evening was that students from both sides of the aisle had come together with a shared purpose, good will, and a common spirit. I would like to believe that the most meaningful memorial we can make for 9/11 is a sustained collaboration lifting up We the people “lest we forget the things thine eyes have seen.”[1]

[1] Deuteronomy, 4:9

This summer, we were very fortunate to spend our vacation touring a number of nations in Eastern Europe that were new to us. In addition to engaging in cultural experiences and performances; meeting remarkable people in every community we visited; seeing spectacular art, architecture, and scenery; navigating new languages; and relishing diverse cuisine; we were overwhelmed by a newfound appreciation for the history of the region.

One city we visited has been taken over militarily 144 times since the departure of the Romans. Every community had been shaped by invasions, wars, religious domination, and communism; and yet everywhere, we saw resilience, pride, and tempered optimism.

These are the kinds of lessons that cultural immersion and travel make possible. They are at the heart of why study abroad is so meaningful and important. “Educational tourism” has its own value, but real study abroad benefits from meaningful cultural immersion. That is what helps us to really appreciate our place in the world and the complexities each of us faces in an ever more global order.

Modern study abroad turns one hundred this year. In 1923, Raymond Kirkbride, a French professor at the University of Delaware, took a group of students to Nancy, France for intensive language classes, and then they went to Paris to take classes at the Sorbonne. This program was called Junior Year Abroad. It soon became the model for other intensive study abroad programs.

About a decade later, the Junior Year Abroad program was acquired by Sweet Briar College, but stalled for another decade framed by the prelude to and recovery from World War II. It relaunched as Junior Year in France (JYF) in 1948, and over its history, thousands of students from colleges and universities across the Unites States spent a year or semester studying in France on that program. Sadly, it closed in 2020, in part due to the pandemic.

With St. Andrew’s University in Scotland, Sweet Briar also created one of the first international-exchange programs in 1932. Students would complete one year of study at the sister institution as a “regular” residential student.

As Dean at Sweet Briar, I had the privilege to be the Doyen (Dean) of JYF for eight years, which along with some very meaningful administrative endeavors also afforded me with opportunities to attend occasional classes at the Alliance française and to participate in cultural events with our students.

The semester students had life-changing experiences, but when I would ask the year students what was different about the second semester, the response was almost always, “Sometime during the second semester, I started dreaming in French.” That’s immersion.

Study abroad helps us to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of home, it prompts us to consider different worldviews and cultural values, and it challenges us to rethink where each of us fits in a global society.

Immediately following my master’s degree, I was fortunate to participate in the Oxford Summer Seminar, which was sponsored by the University of Massachusetts at Trinity College, Oxford. It was such a formative experience.

I had been given a scholarship that was tied to directing a choir from the seminar participants. Most of the students on the program were studying English Literature or Art History, but a group of volunteers from the student body and the faculty came together as a cheery and earnest group. We performed a concert of British music from eight centuries and group of American folksongs and African-American Spirituals. An enormous side benefit was that I could use the chapel as a studio/teaching space.

Studying in Oxford gave me a deep appreciation of the quote, “England and America are two nations divided by a common language,” which is typically attributed to George Bernard Shaw. It was surely even more true in the 1980s than it is now. Culturally, politically, and linguistically, I found myself asking “Why” dozens of times each day. Being at a 900-year-old institution gave a new scale to what working with primary sources could mean, and the tutorial component of my studies has shaped how I teach ever since.

Susquehanna University’s GO (Global Opportunities) program is a remarkable component of our curriculum. Every student has the opportunity to study away. About 95% choose to study in another country, but some students select options that immerse them in a culture different from their own within the U.S.

Our students can do this in three ways:

• GO Short — These are usually 2- to 6-week academic experiences led by members of our faculty. They include significant experiential-learning components.
• GO Long — These are semester-long programs, some led by our faculty and many offered by third-party partners who often oversee program affiliated with universities in the host country.
• GO Your Way — These are self-designed projects that are put together with support from our faculty and staff.

All GO programs have three things in common: students must have an immersive experience in a different culture, each GO experience must meet the program’s learning goals, and students complete a pre- and post-experience class. Those classes are unique to Susquehanna. They help students make the most of their GO trips, and they help them interpret what they learned and how they have been changed by the experience.

Our students cite the GO program as one of the most meaningful components of their college careers. Study abroad has been more broadly identified as one of the highest-impact practices in higher education.

What was seen as a bold experiment in 1923 has become a highlight of the collegiate experience.