Bachelor of Arts - Visual and Material Culture

The Bachelor of Arts - Visual and Material Culture program is a 21st-century approach to art history and preservation. The curriculum expands upon these disciplines to include the examination and role of images, objects, architecture, and the built environment not only as reflections of history, but actors that make history. Billboards, Instagram, fashion, urban green spaces—they all tell a story. Goucher College students learn what those stories are by investigating the meaning and purpose behind everything that people and societies create as ways to express emotion and thought.

Hands-on learning in the field is essential to this program. The program uses the Baltimore area as a “learning lab,” in which the built environment, museums, architectural landscape, urban green spaces, and monuments provide opportunities to experience the multifaceted ways in which people understand, shape, and respond to the world through art and material culture. Additionally, students examine artifacts and rare books in the college's Special Collections and Archives and build focus exhibitions from the Art and Artifact Collection, which contains over 3,000 pieces.