CAA 2105: Call for Presentations, deadline extended to August 1!

"Foundations Flipped? Active Learning in Art History and the Studio"

One of the most talked about pedagogical ideas in higher education is “Flipping the Classroom.” In a “Flipped Classroom,” students control their own learning through studying the course materials in preparation for a more active and engaged course session. Students may be required to listen to an online lecture, watch a YouTube video demonstration, do additional readings or research the subject - all before they step into the classroom. Class time is spent on more in depth discussions and active engagement with the material.

The studio is already an active learning environment. Artists learn by doing. Does this pedagogical approach work in a studio class? Can this model provide students with the necessary skills to succeed as they move forward in their discipline?  Would the flipped classroom work better in art history classes? How can we cover content and still allow students to do independent learning?

This session invites presenters who have successfully flipped their classroom, or part of their class to share their Best Practices in both studio and art history. What worked for your students and what didn’t work for them? Is this an appropriate model to introduce into studio and art history classes? Or is it just a hot trend? How can this pedagogical approach improve learning for studio and art history students?

The College Art Association Conference will be held in New York, February 11- 14, 2015.  Proposals should be sent by August 1 to Monica Anke Hahn by email at: ccpaah@gmail.com

FATE: Call for Presentations

Beyond Good, Bad and "I like it": A New Take on Critique

Isn't it enough that "I like it"? For many professors, this is a very familiar response to their beginning critiques. For many students, the "Crit" invokes fear and dread. "Is my work good?” "Is it bad?” "What do other people think of me and my work?"

As facilitators of the critique, how can we help students to discover the value in discussing their work and that of their peers? How can the experience of critique help students create an understanding of their process and their artistic practice? How can we get them to internalize serious ideas while still using humor and making it fun? How can we get students to be more engaged and responsible for their own discoveries? How do we help them "find their voice"? What about art history classes? Can we use the concept of critique to engage students to become better writers and thinkers?

This session invites innovative critique strategies for use in both studio and art history classes. What new techniques for critique have worked in your classes? How can we make students excited about critique? How can the foundation year build the groundwork for a lifetime of introspection, reflection and most importantly, artistic growth?

The FATE Conference "Tectonic Shifts" will be held March 25-28, 2015 at the Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis.  Proposals should be sent by July 1 to Susan Altman by email: saltman@middlesexcc.edu.

CAA: Call for Presentations

Foundations Flipped? Active Learning in Art History and the Studio

One of the most talked about pedagogical ideas in higher education is “Flipping the Classroom.” In a “Flipped Classroom,” students control their own learning through studying the course materials in preparation for a more active and engaged course session. Students may be required to listen to an online lecture, watch a YouTube video demonstration, do additional readings or research the subject - all before they step into the classroom. Class time is spent on more in depth discussions and active engagement with the material.

The studio is already an active learning environment. Artists learn by doing. Does this pedagogical approach work in a studio class? Can this model provide students with the necessary skills to succeed as they move forward in their discipline?  Would the flipped classroom work better in art history classes? How can we cover content and still allow students to do independent learning?

This session invites presenters who have successfully flipped their classroom, or part of their class to share their Best Practices in both studio and art history. What worked for your students and what didn’t work for them? Is this an appropriate model to introduce into studio and art history classes? Or is it just a hot trend? How can this pedagogical approach improve learning for studio and art history students?

The College Art Association Conference will be held in New York, February 11- 14, 2015.  Proposals should be sent by July 15 to Monica Anke Hahn by email at: ccpaah@gmail.com

Starting the Conversation: Engaging Students in the Studio and Art History (CAA annual meeting, Chicago, February 12-15, 2014)

How do we help students to get involved as active learners and participants in our studio and art history classes? How do we get students to be critical thinkers and share their ideas with their peers? What new and innovative ways can we use to engage and challenge our students? This session is intended to explore and share best practices in both studio courses and art history classes. We are looking for innovative proposals from many different directions in the discipline: studio, art history, art appreciation, digital approaches, and online courses. What new ways can we engage students in the 21st century?

Proposals that are appropriate for this session present new and proven ideas for engaging students to be more involved in their coursework, share ideas, think creatively, and work collaboratively. The session is 1.5 hours and is sponsored by the Community College Professors of Art and Art History. Proposals from 2 and 4-year institutions are welcome. Abstracts should be no longer than 250 words.

The deadline for proposals is July 20, 2013. Please send any inquiries and proposals to: CCPAAH@gmail.com.

Chronicle of Higher Education
June 20, 2012

Underpaid and Restless: Study Presents a 'Dismal Picture' of Life as a Part-Time Professor

By Dan Berrett
Part-time faculty members work for low pay and scant benefits relative to their level of education and training, according to a long-awaited study, released today, of this fast-growing sector of the academic work force.
The median pay, $2,700 per course, and limited access to health insurance "stand in stark contradiction to higher education's claims about the value—including the economic value"—of higher education, write the authors of "A Portrait of Part-Time Faculty Members." The study was conducted by the Coalition on the Academic Workforce, a group of 26 higher-education associations, disciplinary societies, and faculty organizations.


read article...

How did we get here in 2012 that the nation's model for higher education is in the line of cuts?
June 1, 2012

California Cuts Threaten the Status of Universities

By JENNIFER MEDINA

LOS ANGELES — Class sizes have increased, courses have been cut and tuition has been raised — repeatedly. Fewer colleges are offering summer classes. Administrators rely increasingly on higher tuition from out-of-staters. And there are signs it could get worse: If a tax increase proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown is not approved this year, officials say they will be forced to consider draconian cuts like eliminating entire schools or programs.
For generations, the University of California system — home to such globally renowned institutions as Berkeley and U.C.L.A. — has been widely recognized as perhaps the best example of what public universities could be. Along with the California State University system and the state’s vast number of community colleges, higher education options here have long been the envy of other states.
Read more...

Getty launches full text website for art history research

By Jori Finkel
May 31, 2012, 3:00 p.m.
When UC Santa Barbara professor Ann Jensen Adams, known for her work on 17th century Dutch painting, was given the chance to try a new research website from the Getty last week, she first typed in the name of a major artist and author in the search field: Karel van Mander.

She was surprised to find online a full-text version of Van Mander's 1604 masterpiece, "Het Schilder-Boeck" (Book of Painters), which attempted to introduce Dutch and German painters like Vasari's classic "Lives of the Artists" did for so many Italians.

"Up came the work on the first hit," she said. "When I looked at who scanned the text, I realized it had been [online] for a while. But without this portal as a consolidator of information, I never would have found it."

The Getty Research Portal, which officially launched Thursday, was developed by the Getty Research Institute, the Getty museum's more academic sibling. But it's meant to be accessible to anyone with an Internet connection -- scholar, student or just browser -- like an art-specific version of Google Books.

In this case, though, instead of embarking on a mission to digitize the printed world, the Getty is making use of digitized material already available. So far, the website links to about 20,000 titles, drawn from the GRI's own holdings as well as from the libraries of eight institutions.
So far, Columbia University, the Frick Collection, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the BrooklynArt Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Institute of the History of Art (INHA) in Paris, the University of Malaga in Spain and Heidelberg University in Germany have contributed. In all cases, the full digital texts of the books can be downloaded free of charge.

Because the texts are all in the public domain, published before 1923 in the U.S. or before 1909 in other countries, the website is stronger on Old Masters than, say, French Impressionism. A simple search for "Renoir" yields only five results; "Rembrandt" 51.

In either case, though, the emphasis is overwhelmingly Western. "We have only a few books in Chinese about Chinese art, for example," said Murtha Baca, who directs the Getty Research Institute's program in digital art history. "But that's something we really want to change. This is only the beginning: the big focus in the following months and years is collection development."


http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-getty-debuts-full-text-web-site-for-art-history-research-20120530,0,6730780.story

Do we agree that this will be an asset in our teaching, especially at the community college level? 

Why the Google Art Project is Important

Posted on May 29, 2012 by Steven Zucker

by Beth Harris, Ph.D. and Steven Zucker, Ph.D., Deans, Art and History, Khan Academy
Our schools and libraries are being radically re-imagined for the digital age, but what about our museums? The New York Public Library, for example, is bravely (and controversially) rethinking its Fifth Avenue flagship building. Last month, MIT and Harvard announced edX, a partnership to offer free online courses, and last fall, Stanford offered three massive open online courses (MOOC) to hundreds of thousands of students for free, and Khan Academy provided 6.1 million unique users with free instruction in March 2012 alone. Museums, on the other hand, have remained largely insular and focused on their institutional identity. So perhaps it’s no surprise that the most recent digital innovation comes not from the museums themselves but from Google, which launched the second iteration of the Google Art Project last month.
Google faces numerous challenges among academics; nevertheless, we should recognize that Google’s Art Project has done something extraordinary for both museums and for education. A small team based in London persuaded more than 150 museums from around the world to share more than 32,400 high-resolution images beyond their own institutional boundaries.
This is a really big deal.
For the first time in history it is easy for non-specialists to explore and closely examine art from museums across the globe on a single website. There have been other initiatives that have moved in this direction, but never with the scope or functionality of the Google Art Project. The Art Project isn’t finished. It needs more museums and more art. It needs improved search and filtering tools. And the public needs better ways to discover and contribute new narratives about art’s history. Despite these weaknesses, the educational potential is tremendous.

Read More...

Lack of Positions in the Humanities?

This may not be news to many of us, yet I am curious how the lack of positions in art history might be effecting our departments or programs?


From: Faulty Towers: The Crisis in Higher Education
William Deresiewicz, originally posted in The Nation.
"A few years ago, when I was still teaching at Yale, I was approached by a student who was interested in going to graduate school. She had her eye on Columbia; did I know someone there she could talk with? I did, an old professor of mine. But when I wrote to arrange the introduction, he refused to even meet with her. “I won’t talk to students about graduate school anymore,” he explained. “Going to grad school’s a suicide mission.”
The policy may be extreme, but the feeling is universal. Most professors I know are willing to talk with students about pursuing a PhD, but their advice comes down to three words: don’t do it. (William Pannapacker, writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education as Thomas Benton, has been making this argument for years. See “The Big Lie About the ‘Life of the Mind,’” among other essays.) My own advice was never that categorical. Go if you feel that your happiness depends on it—it can be a great experience in many ways—but be aware of what you’re in for. You’re going to be in school for at least seven years, probably more like nine, and there’s a very good chance that you won’t get a job at the end of it."
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Barnes returns

A Museum, Reborn, Remains True to Its Old Self, Only Better

The new Barnes Foundation, in a new shell in Philadelphia.

By ROBERTA SMITH

PHILADELPHIA — The Barnes Foundation’s move from suburban Philadelphia to the center of the city caused art lovers lots of worry.

Devotees of this great polyglot collection, heavy with Renoir, Cézanne and Matisse, which the omnivore art shopper Albert C. Barnes amassed between 1912 and his death in 1951, were appalled by the idea. Barnes spent years obsessively arranging his installation cheek-by-jowl in the mansion in Lower Merion, Pa., that he built for the purpose and opened in 1925, and he stipulated that, after he died, it should remain exactly as it was.

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How to fund the arts in America?

How to fund the arts in America?

Even though it won the Tony Award for Regional Theater this week, The Shakespeare Theatre Company, like many other regional theaters, has seen donors decrease because of the economy, but continues to operate because of generous board members and creative partnerships.
What can we do to stabilize funding for the arts? Can we learn from other countries’ examples? While arts funding is drying up in parts of Europe because of austerity measures, it’s flourishing in Brazil because of a tax on Brazilian companies.
In an era when the National Endowment for the Arts is stretching its budget to fund digital artprojects, what can be improved upon? How can public and private sectors work together?

Read the discussion...

Not Just Another Fake Leonardo

Beneath That Beguiling Smile, Seeing What Leonardo Saw

Samuel Aranda for The New York Times

Ana González Mozo explains the technical study and the restoration process of the Louvre’s Mona Lisa and the Prado’s copy, in her office in Madrid in March.
By SUZANNE DALEY
Published: April 13, 2012Ana González Mozo, a researcher in the Prado Museum's technical documentation department.

 UNTIL recently, the Prado’s copy of the Mona Lisa — one of dozens made over the centuries — was not much of a draw. Then, Ana González Mozo took an interest.

Over the last two years, Ms. González, a researcher in the museum’s technical documentation department, has used all manner of modern-day techniques — X-rays, infrared reflectography and high-resolution digital images, among others — to make, and then document, an unlikely finding.

It turns out that the Prado’s Mona Lisa is not just any 500-year-old copy. It was most likely painted by someone who was sitting right next to Leonardo da Vinci, trying to duplicate his every brush stroke, as he produced his famous lady with the enigmatic smile.

When Leonardo adjusted the size of the Mona Lisa’s head or corrected her hands or slimmed her bosom or lowered her bodice, so did whoever was painting the Prado’s Mona Lisa.

“It had to be painted at the same time,” Ms. González said. “Someone who copies doesn’t make corrections because they haven’t ever seen the changes. They can see only the surface of the painting.”        

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Santa Monica College trustees postpone two-tier fee plan

Proposal to offer classes in core courses such as English, math and history at a cost of about $180 per unit will get further study. It had sparked protests and a pepper-spraying incident.
Carla Rivera, Los Angeles Times
April 7, 2012


Santa Monica College reversed course Friday, canceling a two-tier fee program that had sparked student protests, opposition from the state's community colleges chancellor and national debate about the mission of public institutions.

The Board of Trustees voted unanimously to postpone implementation this summer of the dual-fee plan and to gather wider input from students, faculty and staff on how best to increase access to classes — which have suffered drastic reductions in recent years because of state funding cuts.

The vote came after more than three hours of often-impassioned public comment at the 34,000-student campus, which has a reputation for innovative programs that become models for other colleges.

The issue erupted when police used pepper spray outside a board meeting Tuesday to disperse protesters demanding a campus-wide referendum on the tuition plan.

College President Chui L. Tsang called for the special Friday meeting after speaking with Chancellor Jack Scott, who voiced concern about the pepper-spraying incident and reservations about the plan and its legality.

The chancellor said that the plan to charge more for some high-demand, core courses such as English, math and history violates state education codes; he has asked the state attorney general to weigh in.

Following the trustees' vote, Tsang said he hoped the postponement would provide an opportunity to educate students about the merits of the concept and work with the chancellor to iron out differences over interpretation of state statutes.


Read more...

The Tuition Controversy Behind Santa Monica's Pepper Spraying

By JENS ERIK GOULD / LOS ANGELES Thursday, Apr. 05, 2012
Santa Monica College campus is still regrouping from the chaos of Tuesday night when some 100 student protesters tried to force their way into a board of trustees meeting to voice their opposition to tuition increases. "Let us in!" they shouted at campus police blocking the door. Michael Burnett, a chemistry student present that night, says the crowd looked like it was about to push through the security cordon. "One officer was knocked off balance," Burnett says. "He went into an alcove and came back and sprayed an orange spray indiscriminately." "Without warning, one of the officers sprayed pepper spray on the crowd," recalls Jasmine Delgado, 19.

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April 2, 2012, 12:16 PM

Safer Looks at Art but Only Hears the Cash Register

By ROBERTA SMITH

Was that all there was? The art world was braced for another attack from Morley Safer and his “60 Minutes” crew on Sunday night. It had been nearly two decades since the 1993 segment in which he derisively lumped together the work of Jeff Koons, Cy Twombly, Robert Ryman, Robert Gober, Christopher Wool, Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Jean-Michel Basquiat while inviting conservative art critics like Hilton Kramer, who died last week, to confirm that it was all indeed overpriced tripe — “the emperor’s new clothes,” as he put it.

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NGA Images, a New Collection Image Resource, and Open Access Policy Launched by National Gallery Of Art, Washington

WASHINGTON , DC -- 16 March 2012

click to enlarge

View of a featured collection on the NGA Images website (National Gallery of Art, Washington)

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View of the NGA Images home page (National Gallery of Art, Washington)

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Leonardo da Vinci, Ginevra de' Benci [obverse], c. 1474/1478, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund

(ArtfixDaily.com) 

The National Gallery of Art announces the launch today of NGA Images, a new online resource that revolutionizes the way the public may interact with its world-class collection athttp://images.nga.gov. This repository of digital images documenting the National Gallery of Art collections allows users to search, browse, share, and download images believed to be in the public domain.

"As the Gallery marks its 71st anniversary, it is fitting that we introduce NGA Images and an accompanying open access policy, which underscore the Gallery's mission and national role in making its collection images and information available to scholars, educators, and the general public," said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art. "In turn this supports research, teaching, and personal enrichment; promotes interdisciplinary research; and nurtures an appreciation of all that inspires great works of art."

Many of the open access images have been digitized with the generous support of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

http://www.artfixdaily.com/artwire/release/3363-nga-images-a-new-collection-image-resource-and-open-access-policy

Mid-Year Cuts in California

CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY COLLEGES FACE FURTHER BUDGET CUTS IN MID-YEAR REDUCTION PLAN
SACRAMENTO - The California Community Colleges are facing a serious financial crisis after today's release of the proposed mid-year budget cuts by Governor Gray Davis. The Administration is proposing a $215 million reduction for the 108 community colleges. The total amount is comprised of three segments: 

·-- A $97.5 million cut for the community colleges' total budget in the current year, a 3.66% across-the-board cut for all programs.
·-- A predicted $38 million shortfall in local property taxes, which would not be offset by state funds and therefore result in a $38 million reduction in current-year funding.
·-- An $80 million reduction in apportionments related to concurrent enrollments of K-12 students who are also taking courses at community colleges...read full article here

Community College Professors of Art and Art History

Looking forward to the session at CAA this Friday in Los Angeles.

Community College Professors of Art and Art History
Balancing Demands of Transfer and Art Education in Studio and Art History
Friday, February 24, 7:30 AM–9:00 AM