Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College

ABOUT THE COLLEGE

The Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University, which opened in the Fall of 1999, is the first public honors institution to be built from the ground up in the United States. Its intellectual foundation is a belief in liberal arts education as the best preparation for a full and productive life.

As a public institution, we open our doors to those seeking a challenging, yet affordable, learning experience equal to that of the most selective colleges and universities.

With one faculty for every twelve students, classes are small, and learning is pursued in formal and informal settings. Students have the opportunity to work on research projects one-on-one with outstanding faculty holding Ph.D.'s from leading universities. Student/faculty collaborations have resulted in publications in scholarly journals.

A number of universities offer honors programs or honors colleges. But unlike the
honors options at almost all of these other universities, at the Wilkes Honors College you are able to take all your classes within the Honors College, and your professors are faculty whose full-time appointments are to the Honors College: we provide an all-honors education at an all-honors college.


Academics

The Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College offers a Bachelor of Arts degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences. The B.A. program is designed to develop the qualities of a free and responsible citizen, one who can reason clearly, read critically and analytically, argue persuasively in speech and in writing, and contribute to society in fundamental and innovative ways. Students receive broad intellectual training in the liberal arts and sciences and also specialized training in an area of concentration. Students may pursue a traditional concentration, or major area of study, or they may design their own under the guidance of faculty.

The architecture of a traditional college curriculum, in which knowledge is broken into highly specific fields, disciplines, and departments, gives the misleading impression that human experience and human problems are neatly compartmentalized and that there is a clear division of labor, each discipline being assigned its own subset of these problems and experiences. To help convey to students that knowledge and experience are not so easily partitioned, and that many problems benefit from multiple perspectives, the Honors College Curriculum includes a unique offering of courses and team-taught seminars devoted to interdisciplinary inquiry.


Majors/Concentrations > Visual Arts

Interdisciplinary Visual Arts

Description: Since the advent of cave painting more than 20,000 years ago, people have created images and visual forms that speak about our senses of order, structure, aesthetic values, and socio-political agenda. By learning the principles of design and applying our studio art skills, by studying historical and current human creations, and by critically reviewing past and contemporary analytical theories and approaches to art, we can better understand and appreciate visual art as a means of communicating and representing our ideas, feelings, and values. The making of visual forms thus enriches our life, and our exploration of the different visual forms and aesthetic possibilities in their different historical and cultural background provides us with a fundamental understanding of the development of cultures and civilizations in the world.

The Honors Interdisciplinary Visual Arts Concentration provides students with the opportunity to explore ways in which the arts contribute to our intellectual life and socio-cultural inheritance. This program assists and prepares students with aspirations to pursue a career in the art field, including art history, studio art, community arts, art criticism, public art programs, studio management, gallery and museum work, or arts administration positions. Upon graduation, students should be prepared if they decide to pursue graduate study in art history, criticism, studio art, or related areas.

As a contribution to the Honors College interdisciplinary curriculum, the Honors Interdisciplinary Visual Arts Concentration significantly works with other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Students will learn basic visual vocabulary, and are expected to develop their own sets of aesthetic standards. The analysis of the art, though valuable, is only a portion of the critique. Artistic production along with the development of visual literacy with their relevance to the individual's artistic practice is an indispensable part of this academic study. A combined exploration of these areas will help students to construct meaningful visual images and forms, to develop problem-solving skills, to be able to differentiate an argument from an opinion, and to speak or write out their own ideas in a coherent and persuasive way.

Areas of Specialization: Students may select a general concentration in Interdisciplinary Visual Arts, or choose to specialize in one of two areas: Studio Art and Criticism; or History of Art. Students who concentrate in an area other than Art may choose a Minor Concentration in Visual Arts.

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Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College Art School Location

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