Academic Program Proposal

Date Proposal Activated	Institution and Proposal	Degree Awarded	Academic Program Name	Objection Deadline	MHEC Final Action	Final Decision Date
	Goucher College Proposal	Bachelor of Arts (B.A.)	Visual and Material Culture	10/17/2018	Recommended	11/9/2018
Visual and Material Culture Program Description
This is a proposal to create a new program that would combine an existing major in Art History and an existing minor in Historic Preservation. The new Visual and Material Culture Program (VMC) at Goucher College brings together and builds upon both Art History and Historic Preservation by engaging our students in the multi-faceted nature of images, objects, and architecture. In particular, students who pursue the VMC program explore the role of images, objects, and architecture in the production of knowledge across time and world cultures, an experience aimed at fostering a critical understanding of our ever-changing visual and material world of the 21"1 century. Students who major in Visual and Material Culture explore the many ways in which images, artifacts, and the built environment reflect history and "make" history. Classroom discussions and lectures form the basis for hands-on analysis of documents, books, and ephemera in Goucher's Archives and Special Collections, objects in our Art and Artifacts Collection, and the extensive collections housed in the museums, historical societies, and libraries in and around Baltimore. Through close examination of images, artifacts, and the built environment, students will analyze objects and spaces in their historical, literary, social, economic, and political contexts, and in terms of their reception across time and world cultures.