Margaux Ancel

By Mar­gaux Ancel

With a cur­rent unem­ploy­ment rate of 5.5 per­cent, an esti­mated 1.8 mil­lion peo­ple join­ing the work force with bach­e­lors by the end of the 2016 school year, and the decreas­ing value of such degrees, stu­dents enrolled in small pro­grams such as art his­tory have rea­sons to be con­cerned about their chance to find a job.

The bachelor’s degree, offered inter­change­ably by the School of Fine Arts or Lib­eral Arts depend­ing on the uni­ver­sity, rep­re­sents a small por­tion of the grad­u­at­ing stu­dents explor­ing the job market.

While being part of such a large num­ber of col­lege grad­u­ates look­ing for employ­ment may hin­der one’s abil­ity to get a job eas­ily, art his­tory degrees bring stu­dents an edge to dif­fer­en­ti­ate them­selves from the rest of the crowd.

The Uni­ver­sity of Con­necti­cut offers an art his­tory bachelor’s degree through the school of Fine Arts. The pro­gram is rel­a­tively small and eight fac­ulty mem­bers are cur­rently teach­ing the classes on a rotat­ing basis. How­ever, the addi­tion of a minor 10 years ago has boosted the num­ber of stu­dents enrolling in the classes, accord­ing to art his­tory pro­fes­sor Jean Givens.

As of fall 2014, 20 stu­dents enrolled in fine arts for art his­tory, 17 of them chose the major as their pri­mary degree full-time, one part-time and two were dual degrees. Over­all, this group rep­re­sents 3.63 per­cent of stu­dents enrolled in fine arts and 0.1 per­cent of the cam­pus’ total enrollment.

Look­ing at the trends shown in data records from UConn, the num­ber of stu­dents grad­u­at­ing with the degree has always been fairly low, rang­ing between 10 and 14 from 2004 to 2007. Since then, how­ever, the num­bers have slowly been declin­ing, reach­ing a low of five in 2013.

These num­bers are low in com­par­i­son to other pro­grams offered at UConn. Between 2004 and 2013, the School of Fine Arts con­ferred 1,228 degrees, unlike the 23,681 for the Col­lege of Lib­eral Arts and 5,932 for the School of Busi­ness. Accord­ing to Givens, how­ever, the art his­tory pro­gram is not so dif­fer­ent from other lib­eral arts programs.

So how can such a small pro­gram give stu­dents a valu­able edge in their job search and, more impor­tantly, what is the value of an art his­tory degree?

Sev­eral cur­rent UConn stu­dents and alumni pro­vide the answer to this ques­tion through their per­sonal experiences.

The small size of the pro­gram may actu­ally be part of its value, says Mal­lory O’Donoghue, a recent grad­u­ate stu­dent from UConn’s art his­tory pro­gram. “Art his­tory is a pro­gram that is so unique and spe­cial­ized, that its size is actu­ally an asset,” O’Donoghue said.

Emma Romano, another 2015 UConn grad­u­ate now pur­su­ing an M.F.A. degree in arts admin­is­tra­tion at UConn, had a sim­i­lar opin­ion. “The small size serves as one of the best attrib­utes of this pro­gram,” Romano said. “Since there were only a hand­ful of art his­tory stu­dents, I was able to forge deeper, close con­nec­tions with my pro­fes­sors, many of whom I still stay in touch with, and had the chance to pur­sue many oppor­tu­ni­ties in the uni­ver­sity art museums.”

Bren­dan Smalec, a senior at UConn study­ing mol­e­c­u­lar and cell biol­ogy and art his­tory, expressed one of the many prob­lems fac­ing the art his­tory degree at UConn. “A lot of peo­ple don’t even know that we have an art his­tory depart­ment,” he said.

And he is not wrong.

With this mind­set, the art his­tory pro­gram can be seen as a dis­creet depart­ment full of poten­tial the lib­eral arts com­mu­nity. Cast away to the fine arts depart­ment back in 2002, the field became iso­lated from its human­i­ties coun­ter­parts and joined the art world in the secluded Fine Arts build­ing in south side of cam­pus, only to thrive briefly between 2002 and 2008 by reach­ing new highs in the num­ber of stu­dents enrolled in the program.

Before 2002, art his­tory was part of the Col­lege of Lib­eral Arts, allow­ing stu­dents to eas­ily dou­ble major with­out the added credit require­ments. Cur­rently, stu­dents must now earn an addi­tional 30 cred­its, or two extra semes­ters, to com­plete a sec­ondary major out­side of the School of Fine Arts.

The sep­a­ra­tion of art his­tory from lib­eral arts is a pos­i­tive thing, accord­ing to Givens, since the pro­gram already com­bines mul­ti­ple areas of human­i­ties and pro­motes pair­ing with other areas of inter­ests through minors.

The addi­tional course­work may deter some stu­dents from enrolling in the pro­gram, espe­cially con­sid­er­ing the cur­ricu­lum sim­i­lar­ity to lib­eral arts. “Elim­i­nat­ing the extra cred­its require­ment for peo­ple who are already inCLAS would prob­a­bly attract more stu­dents,” Smalec said.

How­ever, most stu­dents believed the pro­gram had more value in the School of Fine Arts. “Art his­tory is part of the body that makes up fine arts,” O’Donoghue said. “It is the philo­soph­i­cal and men­tal part of fine arts, they need each other to work and art his­tory needs to be phys­i­cally close to actual art to allow for real appli­ca­tion of what we learn in the classroom.”

Smalec had a sim­i­lar opin­ion, hav­ing com­pleted mul­ti­ple ECE courses accred­ited by UConn, he was already ahead of the pro­gram by the time he started his under­grad­u­ate career. The addi­tional cred­its allowed him to grad­u­ate in four years.

“I do like being part of the School of Fine Arts, though, because it allows us to learn along­side stu­dio majors, and I think that main­tain­ing this rela­tion­ship is really impor­tant,” Smalec said. “Since I don’t cre­ate art myself, out­side of the two required stu­dio classes, and stay­ing close with those who actively do is crit­i­cal for his­tor­i­cal analysis.”

The pro­gram offered at UConn seems to be work­ing more effi­ciently in its cur­rent set­ting, although sev­eral pro­fes­sors cite issues with fund­ing when it comes to fine arts. Ear­lier this year, the uni­ver­sity bud­get cuts affected the depart­ment first-hand by elim­i­nat­ing the funds allo­cated to schol­ar­ships and awards granted to stu­dents dur­ing the year for out­stand­ing accom­plish­ments and research.

Last year, the art his­tory master’s degree was ter­mi­nated due to a lack of suf­fi­cient sup­port.

Accord­ing to O’Donoghue, the depart­ment often suf­fers from low fund­ing and bud­get cuts. “Even look­ing at the build­ing, you can tell where the money is going, and fine arts are not a pri­or­ity at the uni­ver­sity,” she said. “It’s not just UConn, though, fine arts nation­ally are no longer a pri­or­ity for edu­ca­tion funding.”

With insuf­fi­cient fund­ing and sup­port, the value of the degree in the eyes of the uni­ver­sity and the gen­eral is ques­tion­able and quite hon­estly under­rated. Art history’s fluid rela­tion to both fine arts and human­i­ties gives it an edge. Accord­ing to a Bloomberg View arti­cle, the solu­tion to high lev­els of unem­ploy­ment in col­lege grad­u­ates does not lie in enrolling in more sci­ence and business-based sub­jects, but rather to con­sider the eco­nomic value of the major. Higher earn­ings majors do not guar­an­tee job secu­rity, diver­sity and a well-rounded edu­ca­tion, how­ever, does.

“The most valu­able skill any­one can learn in col­lege is how to learn effi­ciently — how to fig­ure out what you don’t know and build on what you do know to adapt to new sit­u­a­tions and new prob­lems,” Vir­ginia Postrel wrote in the article.

Givens talked about the prospects of being an arts and lib­eral arts under­grad­u­ate stu­dent com­ing out of the uni­ver­sity entail a need for fur­ther stud­ies, regard­less of the major.

The art his­tory degree should thus be eval­u­ated in two dis­tinct terms, its eco­nomic value and its unem­ploy­ment rate. One is a mat­ter of finan­cial safety, while the other is a ques­tion of adaptability.