Steady Help and Sage Advice

"Jim Valentini has been a transformative leader through the robust efforts he has initiated as well as the numerous efforts he has supported and guided. As The Jonathan Sobel & Marcia Dunn Program Chair for Art Humanities, I benefited greatly from Jim's wisdom and encouragement as I embarked on and completed the most significant curricular overhaul in the history of the Core Curriculum. Only a few years ago, the syllabus for Art Humanities did not include women artists or artists of color. Minor or cosmetic changes would not suffice. With Jim's steady help and sage advice, a team of committed faculty, administrators, graduate students and undergraduates rethought the inner workings of Art Humanities while maintaining its central arc from the Parthenon to the present. After more than two years of dedicated work, Art Humanities now features women or people of color in the vast majority of units and, no less importantly, it invites new sets of questions, experiences, challenges and revelations. None of this would have been possible without the leadership of Dean Jim Valentini."

Noam Elcott CC’00
Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art and Media, and
The Jonathan Sobel & Marcia Dunn Program Chair for Art Humanities, 2018–2021