programs and learning
academic courses served
An asterisk (*) indicates a museum-based course or multiple class visits
AFR 201 Methods of Inquiry in Africana Studies
AMS 351fs/ENG 384fs Topics in Writing about American Society—The Art of Writing Family Stories
ARH 272 Revolution, Industry, Empire: The Art of the Nineteenth Century*
ARH 291 “Ingenuity” and Artists’ Ways
ARH 301 Art History: Methods, Issues, Debates
ARH 352ce Topics in Art History—Imperial Matter: The Art of China’s Early Empires
ARS 172 Studio Art Foundations
ARS 264 Drawing II*
ARS 266 Painting I
ARS 272 Intaglio Printmaking*
ARS 274 Projects in Installation
ARS 277 Woodcut Printmaking
ARS 282 Photography I
CCX 120 Community-Based Learning: Ethics and Practice
CSC 325 Responsible Computing
EAL 245 Writing, Japan and Otherness
EDC 232 The American Middle School and High School
ENG 125 Introduction to Creative Writing
ENG 199 Methods of Literary Study
ENG 303 American Poetry in the Age of Emergency
FRN 286 Invisible Minority: Chinese Culture in France
FYS 129 Tierra y Vida: Land and the Ecological Imagination in U.S. Latino/a Literature
FYS 132 Girls Leaving Home
FYS 147 Power Lunch: The Archaeology of Feasting
FYS 155 Housing In/Justice and Tiny House Dreams
FYS 179 Rebellious Women
FYS 183 Geisha, Wise Mothers and Working Women
FYS 184 Educating Women: A History and Sociology at Home and Abroad
FYS 186 Israel through Literature and Film
FYS 197 On Display: Museums, Collections and Exhibitions*
ITL 235 Intermediate Italian Conversation
ITL 334 Boccaccio: Decameron
LAT 100y Elementary Latin
LSS 105 Introduction to Landscape Studies
PHI 222 Ethics
REL 227 Women and Gender in Jewish History
SDS/CSC 109 Communicating with Data*
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SDS 220 Introduction to Probability and Statistics
SOC 236 Beyond Borders: The New Global Political Economy
SPN 200 Intermediate Spanish
SWG 150 Introduction to the Study of Women and Gender
AFR 202am Topics in Africana Studies: Art, Activism and Media
AFR 245 Harlem Renaissance
AMS 201 Introduction to American Studies
ANT 221 Thinking From Things: Method, Theory and Practice in Archaeology
ARH 110 Art and Its Histories
ARH 278 Race and Gender in the History of Photography
ARS 162 Introduction to Digital Media
ARS 172 Studio Art Foundations*
ARS 266 Painting I
ARS 277 Woodcut Printmaking
ARS 282 Photography I
ARS 362 Painting II
ARX 340 Taking the Archives Public
CHM 100ao Chemistry of Art Objects*
DAN 171 Dance History: Political Bodies from the Stage to the Page*
EAL 244 Japanese Women’s Writing
ENG 118rw Topics in Writing: Riding the Wave
ENG 125 Introduction to Creative Writing
ENG 135ws An Introduction to Writing Creative Nonfiction—Writing about the Senses
ENV 229 Critical Cartography and Environmental Social Movements
FMS 290 Theories and Methods of Film and Media Studies
FMS 345 Violence, Mortality and the Moving Image
FRN 230cw French Calligraphies: Contemporary Chinese Women’s Writing
FYS 130 Narrating the Anthropocene
FYS 184 Educating Women
GEO 251 Geomorphology
IDP 232 Articulating Your Path
ITL 200 Made in Italy*
LAS 291 Decolonize This Museum
LAS 301ae Contesting Space: Art, Ecology, Activism
LSS 245 Place Frames: Photography As Method in Landscape Studies*
MUX 222 Studies in Museums: Painted Wood Sculpture*
MTH Special Studies Mathematica and 3D printing
MUX 300 Museums Concentration Research Capstone Seminar*
PHI 221 Ethics and Society
PHI 345 Practicing Philosophy in the Public Sphere
PSY 268 The Human Side of Climate Change*
REL 238 Mary: Images and Cults
SOC 101 Introduction to Sociology
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SOC 230 Sociology of Food*
SWG 270 Oral History and Lesbian Subjects
THE 100 The Art of Theatre Design
THE 154 “Reading” Dress: Archival Study of Clothing*
WLT 341 Calderwood Seminar-Mobilities: How People, Goods and Information Cross Borders*
Camp Akeela*
Smith College Precollege Programs*
Campus School* (K–6)
Deerfield Academy*
Stoneleigh-Burnham School
Homeschool groups (two)
The MacDuffie School*
Mohawk Trail Regional High School*
Northampton High School*
John Fitzgerald Kennedy Middle School
Hartsbrook School
Amherst Regional High School
Eaglebrook School
Smith Academy
Granby High School
South Hadley High School
Four River Charter Public School
Brattleboro Union High School
Longwood High School
Springfield High School of Science and Technology
Southwick Regional High School
Westminster School
Deerfield Academy
Bridge Street School
Leeds Elementary School*
Mt. Greylock Regional School
Swift River School
Lenox Memorial High School
The Common School
Jackson Street School
The Academy at Charlemont
Springfield Renaissance School
- Smith College M.A.T. graduate program (Education & Child Studies) four-part summer workshop series for preservice teachers
- Two outdoor Art in the Field creativity workshops for families of preschool-age children, in partnership with Northampton Public Schools Early Childhood Center
- Afternoon workshop for Campus School teachers
- SCMA Family Program: Outdoor Sculpture Walk
- The Jill Ker Conway Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center student orientation scavenger hunt
- Cromwell Day drop-in artmaking program
- Picto-Reflections from the Past, Present and Future—A Student Program for Africana Studies Majors organized by Jayda Lobban ’22J, SCMA Academic Programs Assistant
- Connecting Threads cross-campus programming, including a cosponsored (SCMA/Office of Student Engagement) bus excursion to the Tang Museum for Smith students and gallery conversation with artist Sheila Pepe.
- Curator-led tours (two) of Maya Lin: Mappings for Mill River Greenway Initiative Educators and for K–12 Teachers
- Reading the Landscape: A Guided Walk of the Mill River (SCMA Family Program) with Paul Wetzel
- Highland Street Foundation: April School Vacation Week free admission
- SCMA Family Program: Water Inquiry for preschoolers (Maya Lin program) by Smith student Tamarin Camp
- Teacher Workshop on Teaching U.S. History and Democracy through Art (for the Amherst-based Institute for Training and Development’s The Study of the U.S. Institute for Secondary School Educators/international secondary school teachers)
- Excavating the Image: Isaac Julien’s Lessons of the Hour (offered in partnership with the Kahn Institute with faculty participants across the Five Colleges)
- Student Voices: Inside SCMA Adventures in Acquisitions with SCMA student worker Mosa Molapo ’22
- Student Voices: Inside SCMA Curatorial Projects with SCMA student worker Annalise Edwards ’23
- Moody purchase program with students
Williams College Museum of Art Mellon Fellows
Mount Holyoke College Art Museum student guides
University of Massachusetts
Museum of Contemporary Art student guides
International Language Institute
Smith College Posse Scholars
Amherst College museum interns
Chase House visit to Maya Lin: Mappings
Kahn Liberal Arts Institute: Democracies Redux: Resumptions, Resilience, Reconciliation and Restoration
the miller lecture in art with isaac julien
Last spring, Smith college students, faculty and staff gathered together for a lunchtime screening of Isaac Julien’s Miller Lecture talk, which was concurrently livestreamed to an international virtual audience. Jennifer DeClue, Associate Professor of the Study of Women & Gender, and Emma Chubb, Charlotte Feng Ford ’83 Curator of Contemporary Art, delivered introductions. Speaking from his London Studio, Julien discussed his work, including his video piece in SCMA’s collection, Lessons of the Hour, a poetic meditation on the life and times of Frederick Douglass. Later that week, a group of faculty from departments across the Five Colleges convened for a two-day deep dive into Julien’s work, drawing connections to photographs across the SCMA collection; to the African American Heritage Trail in Florence, MA; and to historical material related to Douglass and his circle in the Smith College special collections.
tryon prizes 2022
Each year, two juries award monetary prizes to current Smith students for outstanding writing and art. Writing may take any form, including a thesis, essay or poem, and must be related to art seen at SCMA. Art submissions are limited to time-based art, including installation, performance, video, sound, digital, internet and interactive. The Tryon Prizes are named for painter Dwight W. Tryon, professor of art at Smith College from 1886 to 1923 and SCMA benefactor.
Tryon Prize in Writing
- Aidan Wright ’22: "Ekphrasis for An Imaginary Scene,” poem
- Katie Rebhun ’24: “Why Mourning Picture,” zine
Tryon Prize in Art
- Julissa Nuñez ’22J: “when my mother dreamt me, she dreamt a blonde-haired blue-eyed baby,” 2021, multi-channel video; color, sound, 07:18
- Fay Adan ’22: “Placing You, Displacing Me,” 2021, video, 03:14
“As an art history student at Smith, I spent a lot of time browsing the SCMA collection database and had also been introduced to Romanzo-Elmer through a few classes that explored the museum itself. When I discovered An Imaginary Scene online, I was so happy to find another Romanzo-Elmer piece that wasn’t on display but that featured the same characters I knew so well from the paintings upstairs. The scene and colors were really inviting too, and the obvious family dynamics drew me to writing about the work.” —Aidan Wright
“When I wrote this zine, I imagined it as a jumping-off point for the next person who walks into the museum and immediately feels the need to know everything about Mourning Picture. Its odd technical aspects are fascinating to anyone keen on art history, but more importantly it is one of those rare pieces of art that seems to capture a consensus from its viewers . . . that it makes you feel something. I’ve felt something about Mourning Picture for a while, and my hope is that ‘Why Mourning Picture’ lets readers know they’re not alone in wondering what makes the painting so enigmatic.” —Katie Rebhun
top: Africana Studies major at the student program Picto-Reflections from the Past, Present and Future, conceived and organized by Jayda Lobban ’22J, Academic Programs Assistant. Photo by Charlene Shang Miller; second from top: Facilitated by SCMA Educator for School and Family Programs Gina Hall and SCMA Acting Associate Director of Academic Programs and Public Education Charlene Shang Miller, students in FYS 197: On Display: Museums, Collections and Exhibitions participate in a close looking session with the painting Le Bal Bullier (ca. 1900–1901) by Alfred Henry Maurer. In small groups, students chose a figure in the painting and mirrored the figure’s posture in the mannequin. Photo by Gina Hall; above bottom: Participants in a family program explore Leonard Baskin’s The Owl, 1962, in Capen Garden during a sculpture walk led by SCMA’s Educator for School and Family Programs Gina Hall (not pictured). Photo by Lynne Graves for SCMA
middle top: Students in CHM 100: Chemistry of Art Objects, taught by Elizabeth Jamieson, talk with guest speaker David Dempsey about Ralph Blakelock’s use of materials. Photo by Charlene Shang Miller; middle middle: Studio Art Foundation students sketching and closely observing Betye Saar’s Ancestral Spirit Chair in the Teaching Gallery. Photo by Charlene Shang Miller; middle bottom: Landscape Studies students in Steve Moga’s LSS 245: Photography as Method course “re-framing” their perspectives in the Winslow Teaching Gallery. Photo by Charlene Shang Miller
miller lecture bottom: Artist Isaac Julian speaks about his film Lessons of the Hour over Zoom during the 2022 Miller Lecture in Art. Screenshot by Nina C. Peláez
tryon prize bottom: An excerpt from Tryon Prize Winner Katie Rebhun’s zine “Why Mourning Picture,” which explores the power of Edwin Romanzo Elmer’s painting in the SCMA collection. Image courtesy of Katie Rebhun