Augustana College offers a major and minor in art history, with a curriculum that spans 20 millennia-from Paleolithic cave paintings to contemporary art-and multiple continents, including Asia and Africa. Students progress from a general survey of western art and gradually advance to more specialized study of specific artistic periods, topics and locales, such as Renaissance and Impressionism, the history of printmaking and the arts of Japan. Art history takes a center stage at Augustana in its liberal studies text, Liberal Arts through the AGES. Its cover is this oil on canvas, attributed to Louis-Eugene Boudin, The Beach at Trouville (ca. 1864). (Related article) Courses challenge students to evaluate and interpret works of art as historical documents. They are designed to cultivate critical thinking and develop students' written and oral presentation skills. To foster close contact with faculty and peers, classes are kept small, ranging from a maximum of 25 students for the art history survey to around five students for the senior seminar. The three full-time art history faculty members all hold the Ph.D. and are active in the field. The Augustana College Art Museum is a teaching collection covering all major art historical periods. Students study directly from these original works of art as an integral part of their art history curriculum. During senior year, Augustana students pursue Senior Inquiry and work one on one with a faculty advisor to research a specific topic of the student's choice or do a community service-related academic project. For art history majors, the Senior Inquiry project culminates in a capstone paper and public presentation. In addition to Senior Inquiry, art history students have the opportunity to present papers at the annual Celebration of Learning research symposium and participate in research associated with the Paul A. Anderson Chair in the Arts. This endowment supports student engagement with original works of art from the art history teaching collection towards publications, such as the 2006, 2007 and 2008 editions of Liberal Arts through the AGES, a primary text for Augustana's first-year liberal studies program. The Anderson Endowment also supports the Centre for Whistler Criticism at Augustana, which directly involves students in original primary research toward construction and publication of a comprehensive, interdisciplinary digital archive of the lifetime criticism of American expatriate artist, James McNeill Whistler, at Augustana College in collaboration with the University of Glasgow, Scotland. The art history facilities in Bergendoff Hall include a seminar, library and research room, a smart classroom, a visual resources center housing a collection of more than 50,000 slides and digital images, and an alumni garden. Outside the classroom Augustana art history majors and minors often participate in one of Augustana's many international programs, and visit places such as London, Berlin, Vienna, China, Japan and West Africa. In these "traveling classrooms," students study architecture, art and artifacts within their original locations across the world. The Augustana College Art Museum and the Visual Resources Center provide work study opportunities for students to gain first-hand experience in museum operations and collections management. Through Augustana's highly successful internship program, students may apply for summer, term- or year-long internships at major museums and art organizations, most recently at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. The art history department and the Augustana College Art Museum regularly host lectures by nationally and internationally renowned scholars. In addition, the museum's busy schedule of changing exhibitions exposes students to artists and artistic movements from a variety of places and time periods.

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