Classrooms Without Walls

Kenyon's Department of Art has always offered a broad range of courses. And it just got broader. In the spring of 2006, Kenyon students will have the opportunity to live and study in Italy.

The semester-long Kenyon in Rome and Florence Program will give students the chance to live in those cultural centers while they study with a member of the College's faculty. The course offerings, which will vary from year to year, include such topics as American expatriate artists in Rome and Florence, archaeology, art history, art and theology, architectural history, Florentine culture, Italian language, monuments and culture of Rome, and photographic documentation of art and architecture.

The Kenyon in Rome and Florence Program is open only to Kenyon students. Some fifteen students will be chosen each year from candidates eligible to attend.

According to art history professor Kristen Van Ausdall, one of three Kenyon faculty members who will take turns directing the program, studying art history in Italy is a transforming experience. "To be able to see art and architecture up close means everything. When a student is able to go beyond the two-dimensional forms offered in textbooks and slides, it brings a new dynamic to the learning experience," she says. "Rome and Florence become classrooms without walls."

The new program in Italy takes its place alongside the College's two longstanding successful study-abroad programs. The year-long Kenyon-Exeter Program brings students to the University of Exeter in England for literary study. The Kenyon-Honduras Program gives anthropology students opportunities ranging from archaeological fieldwork to cultural studies, combining seminars on Central America with independent research projects.

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