Statement of Solidarity

The faculty and staff in the Department of History of Art and Architecture stand together in unanimous and unequivocal commitment to the fact that Black Lives Matter. We mourn the murders of Rayshard Brooks, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and the killings of countless other Black people at the hands of police, white supremacists, and vigilantes.

Systemic racism exists at Middlebury, and the racial inequalities that are present in our world have shaped our disciplines and have determined the composition of academic departments, including ours.

Our department is committed to decolonizing its curriculum at all levels. Our diversification of the curriculum must also include an interrogation of the methodologies that systematically exclude Black people and other people of color from the History of Art and Architecture. Similar systems of exclusion are responsible for the extremely low representation of Black people in accredited graduate programs in Architecture and, by extension, in the professional architectural community.

As educators, we commit to doing more in our classes to examine issues of race and systems of inequality; this will involve the incorporation of more BIPOC voices in the scholarship we assign, just as it will include the analysis of artworks and monuments created by BIPOC artists and architects. We also plan to transform our introductory survey courses into a more unified global survey of artworks and monuments drawn from a variety of artistic traditions. Further, we will continue to request a tenure-track position in African Art History, and we will pursue all future hires in our department with an eye toward expanding the racial diversity of our faculty.

Richard Saunders has been at Middlebury since 1985. His areas of expertise are art of the United States and the history of the art museum.

He received degrees from Bowdoin College (B.A.), the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture at the University of Delaware (M.A.), and Yale University (M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D.).

MiddTags:

art museum

history of art & architecture

art history

Courses

Course List:

Courses offered in the past four years.
▲ indicates offered in the current term
▹ indicates offered in the upcoming term[s]

HARC 0510 - Advanced Studies ▲ ▹

Advanced Studies
Supervised independent work in art history, museum studies, or architectural studies. (Approval Required)

Fall 2017, Winter 2018, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Winter 2019, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Winter 2020, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Winter 2021, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Winter 2022, Spring 2022

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HARC 0540 - Independent Museum Studies ▹

Supervised Independent Work in Museum Studies
This practicum builds upon the Museum Assistants Program (MAP), the hands-on museum education program at the Middlebury College Museum of Art. In MAP, the Curator of Education trains students to conduct tours of the Museum’s permanent collection and of special exhibitions for audiences of peers, school groups, and the general public. Combining service learning with the opportunity to both support and learn more about the arts, students gain expertise in public speaking, art history, and public programming. HARC 0540 should be taken concurrently with the second semester of MAP. The class will culminate with a public presentation on a museum-related topic evaluated by a faculty member of the Department of History of Art & Architecture. (Approval required)

Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022

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HARC 0761 - Senior Thesis: Museum Studies ▹

Senior Thesis: Museum Studies
This course is a continuation of HARC 0710, which consists of ongoing, supervised independent work with an advisor, plus organizing, writing, and presenting a curatorial or museum-based thesis or exhibition. (Approval Required)

Winter 2018, Winter 2019, Winter 2020, Winter 2021, Winter 2022

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Department of History of Art & Architecture

Edward Vazquez, Chair

Michaela Davico, Department Coordinator
Mahaney Center for the Arts
72 Porter Field Road
Middlebury College
Middlebury, VT 05753

Middlebury

art_history

harc_header.jpg

Richard Saunders

Director of the Middlebury College Museum of Art

Courses

HARC 0510 - Advanced Studies ▲ ▹

HARC 0540 - Independent Museum Studies ▹

HARC 0761 - Senior Thesis: Museum Studies ▹

Department of History of Art & Architecture