CAA News

CAA renews memberships on a rolling basis, much like a magazine subscription. However, because the previous renewal schedule before 2005 was based on the calendar year, many current individual and institutional memberships expire on December 31, 2008. Your access to essential online resources, printed materials, and journals, and to the 2009 Board of Directors election, is available only with a current membership.

In addition, special conference-registration discounts apply only to CAA members. The early registration deadline is December 19, 2008. Don’t miss out on these great savings—be sure your membership is current.
It’s easy to check your membership status or to renew your membership online: click on “Account Log In” at the upper right of this webpage; you can gain access to your profile with your CAA member number (located on your membership card or mailing address label) and password. Your preset password is included in your membership packet.

If you have forgotten your member number or password, please contact CAA’s Member Services at memsvcs@collegeart.org or by fax at 212-627-2381. You may also call 212-691-1051, ext. 12, during our office hours: Monday–Friday, 9:00 AM–5:00 PM EST.

The 2008 Nominating Committee submits its slate of six candidates to serve on the CAA Board of Directors from 2009 to 2013. Please read each candidate’s statement and biography—and watch their special video introductions—before casting your vote. Voting begins on January 5, 2009, and ends on February 27.

The candidates are:

• Carol Crown, University of Memphis
• Jacqueline Francis, California College of the Arts and San Francisco State University
• DeWitt Godfrey, Colgate University
• Patricia Mathews, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
• Patricia McDonnell, Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University
• Perri Lee Roberts, University of Miami

Voting begins on January 5. For full details about the election, visit the board-election webpage. Questions or comments? Please contact Vanessa Jalet, CAA executive assistant, at 212-691-1051, ext. 261.

From the Art History Newsletter:

In the Wall Street Journal, we read that according to “a year-long survey of 1.2 million people with only a bachelor’s degree by PayScale Inc.,” art-history majors have a median starting salary of $35,800. Ten years after graduation, their median salary is $64,900. In that respect, they beat majors in anthropology, biology, criminal justice, drama, education, English, forestry, graphic design, health care administration, hospitality, interior design, music, nutrition, psychology, religion, sociology, and Spanish. That said, philosophy majors are earning a median $81,200 ten years out.

Conference papers from the 32nd Congress of the International Committee of the History of Art (CIHA), which convened in Melbourne, Australia, in January 2008, will soon be published by Miegunyah Press. Entitled Crossing Cultures: Conflict, Migration and Convergence, the book is edited by the conference convenor Jaynie Anderson.

Art and its history are not only created but are also discussed in one form or another on all the inhabited continents of the earth. Globalism has also assumed an art-historical aspect: indeed it has been described as art history’s most pressing issue. The themes are conflict, migration, and convergence in the visual, symbolic, and artistic exchanges between cultures throughout history. This publication will explore these themes.

This bound book is only available via a preorder form. It will not be available from any other outlets. Orders for this publication will be accepted until February 27, 2009—don’t miss this opportunity! Individual chapters of the book will also be available to purchase and download online in June 2009.

The Chronicle of Higher Education has published an article on what “Conference Rookies” should expect while on job hunts at academic conferences. Two academic career experts—Julie Miller Vick of the University of Pennsylvania and Jennifer S. Furlong of Columbia University’s Center for Career Education—provide tips and pointers on scheduling interviews, eating, organizing materials, and more.

CAA will soon publish its Career Services Guide on the conference website. The document will also appear in the forthcoming January issue of CAA News and be available at Orientation and in the Candidate Center at the 2009 Annual Conference in Los Angeles. In the meantime, both job candidates and interviewers are encouraged to review CAA’s two Standards and Guidelines dealing with the job search—Etiquette for CAA Interviewers and Standards for Professional Placement—as well as to read CAA’s recommendations for preparing CVs and résumés for artists, art historians, and museum professionals.

The Arts Education Network Weekly News reports that several national arts and arts education organizations have submitted a policy brief on the arts to President-elect Barack Obama and his transition team. The brief covers recommendations for the National Endowment for the Arts; cultural exchange; arts education in school, work, and life; national service and the arts; and the role of the arts in nonprofit communities. The brief also requests that the incoming president appoint a senior-level administration official to coordinate arts and cultural policy.

According to the brief, “The arts and cultural community welcomes the opportunity to communicate with President-Elect Obama and his staff in re-imagining how the federal government can inspire and support creativity in communities nationwide through robust policies that advance participation in the arts for all Americans.”

The following are the recommendations proposed for arts education:

• Prevent economic status and geographic location from denying students a comprehensive arts education
• Ensure equitable access to the full benefits of arts education when reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act so that all, not just some, students can learn to their full potential
• Exercise leadership to encourage arts-based and other creative learning environments for academically at-risk students participating in Title I-funded programs
• Retain the arts in the definition of core academic subjects of learning and reauthorize the Arts in Education Programs of the US Department of Education
• Fund after-school arts learning opportunities and support arts-education partnerships between schools and community arts and cultural organizations
• Move federal policy beyond simply declaring the arts as a core academic subject to actually implementing arts education as an essential subject of learning
• Require states to issue annual public reports on the local status and condition of arts education and other core academic subjects
• Improve national data collection and research in arts education
• Invest in professional development opportunities for teachers in the arts
• Deploy arts education as an economic-development strategy
• Authorize and encourage inclusion of arts learning in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) initiatives in order to foster imagination and innovation. Without the arts, STEM falls short of its potential to advance education and workforce development
• Fully preparing students with the creative skills they will need to advance our nation’s position in the twenty-first-century global economy requires implementing the arts as a core subject of learning and ensuring that all students attain cultural literacy
• Ensure that the full range of federal initiatives that advance workforce development, such as Department of Labor programs, provide training in the skills of creativity and imagination

Among the many joining organizations are Americans for the Arts, the American Association of Museums, the Association of Art Museum Directors, the Literary Network, the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, the National Council for Traditional Arts, and the National Performance Network.

CAA is now taking preorders of Graduate Programs in Art History: The CAA Directory. This easy-to-use directory includes over 260 schools and English-language academic programs in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and elsewhere worldwide. An index lists schools alphabetically and by state and country for quick reference.

Member Rate: $39.95 + shipping and handling
Nonmember Rate: $49.95 + shipping and handling

Please visit our online store to reserve your copy of the directory today. If you are ordering on behalf of an institution or department within a university, please use this form and submit via fax or post. At this time, online purchases can only be processed for individuals.

The directory is your indispensable, comprehensive guide to schools offering master’s, doctoral, and related degrees in art studies, including:

• History of Art and Architecture
• Visual Studies
• Museum Studies
• Curatorial Studies
• Arts Administration
• Library Science

Listings provide:

• Descriptions of specialized courses
• Number, names, and specializations of faculty
• Facilities such as libraries, image libraries, and labs
• Student opportunities for research and work
• Information on financial aid, fellowships, and assistantships
• Details on housing, health insurance, and other practical matters

Graduate Programs in the Visual Arts: The CAA Directory, which includes studio art, graphic design, applied arts and design, film production, art education, and conservation, will be available in early 2009.

The editorial board of Art Journal seeks interested CAA members to join us at the 2009 Annual Conference in Los Angeles for a roundtable discussion on art and transnationalism.

Art in the twentieth century has been deeply shaped by exile, travel, and diaspora. Since about 1990, “globalization” has been driven by the trajectory of global finance and transnational capitalism, which in turn have intensified transnational circulation and art practice. Seen through this lens, the contemporary artist is a producer of commodified sameness, and even an unwitting vector for capitalist penetration into the peripheries. But transnational practice and exchange may also foster new imaginaries and solidarities at variance with capitalism. Can such practices transform the local by enabling a more direct social address? Postcolonial theory and globalization studies are enabling new ways of writing histories of modernisms as crossnational cultural forms. Thinking through transnationalism may productively reconfigure the disjunctive relationship between a local or national art history and a “global” art history of the modern and contemporary era.

Led by Art Journal editorial-board member Iftikhar Dadi, the roundtable discussion will be recorded and may provide material for publication in a future issue. The discussion will take place on Thursday, February 26, 2:00–4:00 PM, at a conference location to be announced.

Participation is by invitation. Please send a brief email describing your interest in the topic and how you foresee contributing to the discussion to mid1@cornell.edu. Invitations to participate will be sent around February 1. Deadline: January 20, 2009.

States are making little or no progress in providing affordable college opportunities or improving college completion rates for their residents, says a report released today by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. The findings come as states face massive budget shortfalls that threaten higher-education funding, and the United States continues to lag behind other advanced nations on measures of higher-education performance.

Drawing on nearly two decades of data, the report, Measuring Up 2008, finds that while states have made modest gains in preparing students for college, more students are failing to graduate from high school. While college-enrollment rates for young adults are improving, enrollment rates are declining for older adults. The report also notes that the burden of paying for college is now higher for students in every state, and low college-completion rates have barely improved. Additionally, disparities persist in college access and success by income, race and ethnicity, and state.

According to the study, major gaps include:

• Affordability. The burden of paying for college has increased for all families but has increased substantially more for low- and middle-income families. Nationally, families in the lowest-income group (bottom 20 percent of the population) pay 55 percent of their income to attend public four-year colleges and universities (after accounting for all student financial aid)—a jump from 39 percent in 2000. Families in the middle-income group (middle 20 percent of the population) pay 25 percent of their income (up from 18 percent in 2000), and those in the top income group (top 20 percent of the population) pay 9 percent of their income (up from 7 percent in 2000). (See page 8 of Measuring Up 2008.)
• Additionally, college is more affordable in some states than others. At community colleges, the proportion of family income needed to pay for college expenses, after financial aid, has increased from 18 percent to 25 percent in Florida, and from 20 percent to 25 percent in Washington State. At public four-year institutions, the percentage of income needed to pay costs, after aid, has increased from 17 percent to 20 percent in Minnesota, from 19 percent to 34 percent in New Jersey, and from 29 percent to 41 percent in Pennsylvania. (See page 15.)
• High school completion. In Illinois, 95 percent of white young adults have a high school credential, compared with 82 percent of blacks. In Texas, 93 percent of white young adults have a high school credential, compared with 74 percent of Hispanics. (See page 14.)
• College attendance. In Connecticut and New York, 50 percent of white young adults are enrolled in college, compared with 34 percent of blacks. In California, 45 percent of whites are enrolled, compared with 27 percent of Hispanics. In Arizona, 40 percent of whites are enrolled, compared with 18 percent of Native Americans. (See page 14.)
• College graduation. In Delaware, 73 percent of white students complete a bachelor’s degree within six years of enrolling in college, compared with 41 percent of black students. In New York, 63 percent of whites do so, compared with 43 percent of Hispanics. In New Mexico, 47 percent of whites graduate within six years, compared with 25 percent of Native Americans. (See page 16.)

As a result of these inequities, US higher-education performance has been declining compared to other nations in recent years.

• In college completion, which has never been a strength of American higher education, the US falls in the middle of the pack: fifteenth among twenty-nine countries compared
• The US adult population ages thirty-five and older still ranks among the world leaders (second only to their peers in Canada) in the percentage who have college degrees, reflecting the educational progress of earlier times
• Among twenty-five- to thirty-four-year-olds, however, the US has slipped to tenth in the percentage having college degrees. This relative erosion of our national “educational capital” reflects the lack of significant improvement in the rates of college participation and completion in the US in recent years, compared with other countries

Measuring Up 2008 is the fifth in a series of biennial report cards issued by the National Center, based in San Jose, California. Like the earlier reports, this edition measures the performance of the nation and of each state in providing education and training beyond high school. Each state receives an A-to-F grade in each of five performance areas.

In addition to the national report card, detailed individual report cards are available for each of the fifty states. Upon release of Measuring Up 2008, the national and state report cards will be posted on the National Center’s website.

The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education promotes public policies that enhance Americans’ opportunities to pursue and achieve a quality higher education. Established in 1998 by a consortium of national foundations, the center is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization. It is not associated with any institution of higher education, with any political party, or with any government agency. The National Center is solely responsible for Measuring Up 2008.

CAA has announced the recipients of its two book-grant programs, the Millard Meiss Publication Fund and the Wyeth Foundation for American Art Publication Grant.

Fall Meiss Grant Winners

CAA has awarded six Millard Meiss Publication Grants for fall 2008. Thanks to the generous bequest of the late Prof. Millard Meiss, these grants are given twice annually to publishers to support the publication of scholarly books in art history and related fields.

The grantees are:

• Mehmet-Ali Atac, The Mythology of Kingship in Neo-Assyrian Art (Cambridge University Press)
• Daniel Connolly, The Maps of Matthew Paris: Medieval Journeys through Space, Time, and Liturgy (Boydell and Brewer)
• Joyce de Vries, Caterina Sforza and the Art of Appearances: Gender, Art, and Culture in Early Modern Italy (Ashgate)
• Finbarr Barry Flood, Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Hindu-Muslim Encounter (Permanent Black)
• Victoria George, Whitewash (Pindar Press)
• Roslyn Hammers, Art, Technology, and Labor in Early Modern China (Hong Kong University Press)

Books eligible for a Meiss grant must already be under contract with a publisher and be on a subject in the arts or art history. Authors must be current CAA members. Application criteria and guidelines are available from the CAA Publications Department. Deadlines: March 15 and October 1 of every year.

Wyeth Publication Grant Winners

CAA is pleased to announce five recipients of the Wyeth Foundation for American Art Publication Grant for 2008. Thanks to a second generous three-year grant from the Wyeth Foundation, these awards are given annually to publishers to support the publication of one or more book-length scholarly manuscripts in the history of American art, visual studies, and related subjects.

The books receiving a grant are:

• Carol Clark, Charles Deas and 1840s America (University of Oklahoma Press)
• William Innes Homer, The Paris Letters by Thomas Eakins (Princeton University Press)
• Anna Indych-López, Muralism without Walls: Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros in the United States, 1927–1940 (University of Pittsburgh Press)
• Kirk Savage, Monument Wars: Washington, the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape (University of California Press)
• Kristina Wilson, The Modern Eye: Stieglitz, MoMA, and the Art of the Exhibition, 1925–1935 (Yale University Press)

Books eligible for the Wyeth Grant have been accepted by a publisher on their merits but cannot be published in the most desirable form without a subsidy. The topic must be in American art; authors must be current CAA members. Application criteria and guidelines are available from the CAA Publications Department. Deadline: October 1, 2009.