By Mike Desoto
Full article available here. Excerpts below.
… These campus museums and collections house an incredibly wide and deep range of materials and artifacts across many disciplines. They play a crucial role in the student experience, and not just for art or history students. Curators of these collections often take bold risks and cultivate unique exhibitions that help all types of faculty members enrich their courses.
“Artists have a way of breaking through old tropes and helping us see things in new ways,” says Amy Werbel, a professor of art history and museum professions at the Fashion Institute of Technology. “The space of an art museum can really transform the conversations we’re able to have.”
A professor with a course on sustainability, for example, might want to bring students to an exhibition on Indigenous land use and food justice, which involves universal access to nutritious and culturally appropriate food. A nursing instructor might use a visit to a museum to help students improve their visual acuity by studying paintings and observing nuances in color and detail; this type of training with artwork has been shown to improve accuracy in patient exams. Business and marketing majors could use museum art to inspire AI-generated works through an iterative process that starts with the original work and gets refined by students into something new that communicates an effective message.
Museums provide a space for these experiences, which can expand students’ learning and deepen their thinking about course content and the broader world. “Often, museums and galleries are spaces that are intentionally designed to provide breathing room,” Werbel says.
The process of standing in front of a physical work of art, and debating its meaning with fellow classmates, is much different from learning from behind a desk or in front of a computer screen. “The opportunity to learn from, handle, see, and experience an actual art object is still our primary goal,” even as technology plays an increasing role in student life, says Kristina L. Durocher, the president of the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries.
… “At university art museums, you can take more risks,” Coe says. She sees more space to be experimental and inventive—and indeed, sees that type of work as part of the mission of an academic museum to
spark conversations.
Her colleague, Dean Carpenter, echoes this point: “Works of art, when positioned intentionally, require us to ask questions we might not ask otherwise.”