Undergraduate

Overview

The Department of History of Art and Architecture is committed to exploring how the world has been imagined in visual form and how that world has been constructed in objects, spaces, and environments. We believe that by investigating the purposes and meanings of these cultural products, shaped and reshaped over time, we better understand ourselves and each other.

As liberal arts majors in a strong research university, our undergraduates are empowered to pursue a variety of academic and professional goals. We teach them to think critically, speak confidently, write effectively, engage in interdisciplinary study, and learn from cultures beyond their own.  Most fundamentally, we encourage students to develop an informed perspective for observing and analyzing the world around them.  Increasingly, in a global environment, this perspective on the world is valued not only in art professions but in business, law, public policy, engineering, and a host of other endeavors.

Many HAA majors, through the secondary major option, shape their individual academic interests by majoring in other fields; anthropology, studio arts, psychology, communications, history, political science, business, neuroscience, English literature and writing, Spanish, Italian, and French are popular choices.

HAA Program Requirements

The major

There are four possible majors within the HA&A program:

• The standard major, which provides students with intensive knowledge of the major periods of the history of art and with critical thinking and communication skills. This 38-credit track is required of all students whose only major is HAA.
• The secondary major option, which requires the completion of fewer credits (29) than the standard major, enabling students to adopt a second major as an undergraduate if they so choose.
• The honors major—earned by students who completed a honors thesis with a grade of A- or higher and who maintain an overall and departmental grade point average of 3.5. This track is recommended for those who seek to go to graduate school.
• The architectural studies program, which is a cross-disciplinary pre-professional major, designed for students who plan to pursue a professional degree in architecture at the graduate level. (A separate information sheet and brochure is available for Architectural Studies Majors.)

The minor

• The Historic Preservation minor is also offered through the HAA department for students interested in the preservation of historically significant sites and structures.