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In curricula and substance, art history engages with the studio arts, design, film, history, philosophy, and museum studies. Art history is crucial to building critical looking, thinking, and literacy skills; cultural and social empathy; and new and emerging ways to employ digital technologies. Yet, university programs have devalued, under-funded, collapsed, and marginalized art history departments or degrees in favor of programs that emphasize STEM and other market-driven programs. This session sponsored by the Services to Historians of the Visual Arts Committee asks for proposals that respond to, complicate, subvert, amplify, and/or negate any of the following questions:

• In what ways does art history bridge gaps between disciplines rather than simply serve other disciplines?
• How does art history contribute to the broader humanities, and why is its preservation essential in higher education?
• What are the implications of diminishing/closing art history programs?
• In what ways can art history adapt to demonstrate its relevance in a rapidly changing educational landscape?
• What are the root causes of the devaluation of art history in higher education, and how can they be addressed?
• How can advocates/activists for art history better communicate its value to decision-makers in higher education?
• How might art history’s inherent interdisciplinarity and variety of scholarly approaches lend themselves to helping instructors better understand student learning, innovations in pedagogical practice, and the transformation of higher education?

We look forward to a diverse array of presentation formats and approaches, including but not limited to didactic performances, scholarly case studies, confessionals, PechaKucha, and interactive lectures.