The Department of History and Social Studies Education offers an undergraduate minor in Museum Studies, an advanced certificate in Museum Studies for those who already possess an undergraduate degree, and an MA in Museum Studies. The minor requires 18-21 credit hours in Museum Studies; the Certificate, 18 hours, and MA students specialize in collections management and curatorial practice, museum experience and education, or museum operations.
Students can earn an MA in Curatorial Studies at the Center for Curatorial Studies (CSS) at Bard College. CSS is an exhibition and research center dedicated to the study of art and exhibition practices from the 1960s to the present day.
This broadly interdisciplinary program provides practical training and experience in a museum setting and an intensive course of study in the history of the contemporary visual arts, the institutions and practices of exhibition making, and the theory and criticism of the visual arts in the modern period. The faculty includes curators and other museum professionals, scholars in the humanities and social sciences, artists, and critics. The curriculum is specifically designed to deepen students understanding of the intellectual and practical tasks of curating exhibitions of contemporary art, particularly in the complex social and cultural situations of present-day urban arts institutions, and to help students improve their interpretive and critical writing.
