Kaitlin Quick

134 Mosswood Ct.

Richmond, VA 23236

C 804 9862405
H 804 3202217

kquick8890@gmail.com

October 20, 2010

Russell Pensyl
Chair, Proffessor
Northeastern University Art + Design Dept.
239a Ryder Hall
11 Leon St.
Boston MA, 02115

Dear Chair Pensyl,

As a student of the Art + Design department, I am writing to you on behalf of myself and my
classmates. We respect and appreciate everything you have done for the department thus far,
and anticipate nothing less as time progresses. It is because of your positive impact on the
department, that we write to petition a change in the requirements to qualify for an Art History
minor.

Right now, the department offers ten art history courses. For those outside the
department taking five of the ten courses is necessary to attain a minor, but for those students
in the department four of the ten courses aren’t eligible to fulfill the requirement due to the
fact that they are requirements for our majors. That leaves six options, one of which is study
abroad. Realistically this leaves five course options, of which an Art + Design student in pursuit
of a minor would have to complete four. Many of these courses aren’t offered every semester,
creating another barrier for the Art + Design students.

We are aware that a certain number of credit hours are needed for the university to
recognize a minor, but under the current system it is exceptionally convoluted to attain one.
Many students like myself are just one or two credits away from a minor, but due to the lack of
course offerings they either cannot or are not motivated to minor. I have taken five of the ten art
history courses offered, yet I cannot have a minor until I complete nearly every course the
department offers. With our strictly regimented schedules dictated by when studio courses are
offered, it’s difficult to have an upper level art history course correspond.

After examining other universities' requirements for similar programs and departments,
I realize that some but not all require similar augmented course hours for a minor in art
history. The striking difference is that the courses offered to do so are far more numerous than
those in our course catalogue. The most relevant example is Drexel University, one of the the
other top co-op universities in the country with a similar Art + Design dept. to ours. Drexel
offers upwards of forty art history courses. Three to four are required of their art students
(depending on their program of study), and all of them can count towards the Art History minor
requirement of five courses. There are no differences in the requirements for Art students and
the rest of the student body. We are not asking you to model our program on theirs. We are
asking you to consider the ratio of courses offered to courses required as well as the fact that at
universities on the same level as ours, use the Art History requirements to benefit their students
and not give them the run around to attain a minor. To me, these glaring differences show that
in order to fairly require that number of courses the school must offer more options to fill
them.

We propose that until the department can offer more course offerings that will satisfy
the minor requirement, at least two of the courses required for our major should fulfill the
minor requirements as well. For those in the Digital Art program, all of the basic courses
offered include an intense art history aspect, much of which overlaps with the curriculum of the
art history courses offered. In fact, I had multiple readings overlap on multiple occasions. It is
because of this that I feel the Digital Art students would not be missing out on classroom time
if the minor requirement was altered.

The ultimate goal of our proposal is not to lessen our workload, but to eventually
bolster the size and reputation of the art history sector of our department. We recognize that
this will take time, but do not feel we should be penalized for a lack of course offerings on the
university’s part. We hope that you would agree that this is a serious issue, and will help us
attempt to remedy the problem at hand.

Attached are the signatures of those students who support this petition.

On Behalf of the Art + Design Department Student Body,

Kaitlin Quick