VES Department Creates New Painting Professorship

The departure of former studio painting lecturer Nancy Mitchnik last spring left a vacancy in the department that denied VES students—especially students interested in creating a body of paintings for their theses—the opportunity to develop a long term relationship with an instructor.

Mitchnik initially came to Harvard as a visiting professor and was appointed senior preceptor and a studio arts lecturer in 1998.

After 10 years in the position, she left last spring because she could only hold her five-year lecturer appointment for two terms.

Garber told The Crimson last spring that she hoped to eventually create a tenured faculty position to teach studio painting, but the current financial constraints faced by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences prohibited that option for the time being.

In the past, the frequent turnover of visiting professors—who typically remain in the department for one to three years—has resulted in a lack of continuity for painting students.

Patrick A. Gordon ’11, who is pursuing a secondary field in VES, said that a tenure-track professor would provide “stability” in the department.

“I have colleagues who will be working on their theses next semester and do not know who their advisor will be,” Gordon wrote in an e-mail, adding that a close relationship with a thesis advisor is especially important for a creative thesis.

VES concentrator Julia A. F. Rooney ’11, who plans to create a body of paintings on the subject of Italian cities for her thesis, said that having a thesis advisor with whom she had worked before would help her to channel “conflicting and contradictory voices” into a coherent project.

“I don’t think tenure in general is the best thing, but I also think it is very problematic to have these three-year positions or these visiting positions where someone comes in for a year and then they are gone,” she said

At the same time, Rooney said she still sees value in the circuit of visiting professors in the VES department because the system makes it possible to incorporate working artists into the department, providing students with a diversity of perspectives.

“We get a lot of working artists who we probably wouldn’t be able to get otherwise,” Rooney said, though she added, “But for the students it’s really hard.”

—Staff writer James K. McAuley can be reached at mcauley@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Julia L. Ryan can be reached at jryan@college.harvard.edu.