Since 1988, the Art and Music Program and the Hope Horn Gallery have together provided high-quality education in the visual arts to campus and community audiences throughout Northeastern Pennsylvania. Scholarly and accessible, an annual sequence of balanced and creative course offerings, exhibitions, conferences, lectures, workshops, and publications attracts widespread audiences, earning the recognition of a public ranging from locally schooled kindergarten students to internationally recognized museum professionals. Art history, an academic discipline with a critical public interface at the University, studies the production of visual culture and supports core objectives of the Jesuit mission: the Ignatian concept of magis; seeking God in all things; liberal education; service of faith and promotion of justice; and contemplation in action. Intentional collaboration between the program and the gallery fundamentally informs and strengthens the artistic products they generate. The effectiveness of this consciously partnered activity is apparent in recent events cohosted by the gallery and the program, the concurrent historical development of both, and forthcoming curricular initiatives.Events during spring 2011 showcased collaboration that produced well-grounded and far-reaching art historical programming. On Feb. 4, visitors attended the opening of "An Ideal Subject: The Art of Jennie Brownscombe." On view through March 18, the exhibition introduced the career of Brownscombe, a 19th-century artist born in Honesdale, who worked in New York City and abroad. Guest-curated by Sally Talaga, executive director of the Wayne County Historical Society, the exhibition featured paintings loaned by the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C., Pilgrim Hall Museum, Plymouth, Mass., and private collectors from New Jersey to Texas.

Addressing Brownscombe's role as a genre, history and portrait painter, "An Ideal Subject" resulted from research on local women's history conducted since 2005 by Josephine Dunn, Ph.D, professor of art history and program director. In 2007, paintings by Brownscombe were displayed on campus in "Alive to the Call: Women of Northeastern Pennsylvania." Curated by Dr. Dunn, this exhibition was featured at the First Biennial Regional Conference on Women and History in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Four years later, Darlene Miller-Lanning, Ph.D, gallery director and adjunct faculty in the program, collaborated with Dr. Dunn and Talaga to develop the one-person show contextualizing Brownscombe regionally and nationally.

As the culmination of two years' planning and preparation, "An Ideal Subject" resulted in exciting educational outcomes. An essay based on the Brownscombe exhibition catalog authored by Dr. Dunn, Talaga and Dr. Miller-Lanning was featured as the cover piece of the nationally distributed art history journal "American Art Review" in February 2011.

Opening events drew more than 150 guests. University students toured and analyzed the show through various writing assignments. More than 100 elementary and high school students from the St. Stanislaus School, The University of Scranton’s University of Success program and Wallenpaupack Area School District’s gifted program attended daylong exhibition workshops funded by the Lackawanna County Office of Arts, Education, and Culture, and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Events came full circle when participants in the Third Biennial Regional Conference on Women and History in Northeastern Pennsylvania enjoyed a concluding champagne reception at the exhibition.

The third biennial conference in March 2011 reprised topics introduced at the conferences of 2007 and 2009. Keynote addresses delivered at both conferences, respectively, by Bonnie Stepenoff, Ph.D., professor, Southeast Missouri State University, Girardeau, Mo., and Kathryn Kish Sklar, Ph.D., distinguished professor, Binghamton University, Binghamton, N.Y., provided historical context for current research on women’s history in this little-studied region. Before an audience from five Pennsylvania counties, Linda Shopes, associate fellow in history at Dickinson College, Carlisle, and faculty member at the Oral History Institute, Columbia University, New York City, delivered the keynote address: "Women’s History in NEPA: So What?" Individual presentations by local researchers were followed by a 1920s buffet luncheon that symbolically honored the 19th Amendment. The conference was supported by the Hope Cumming Horn Endowment, named for a local artist and activist who willed her estate to the program in 2001. Pennsylvania Cable Network filmed and broadcast the conferences of 2007 and 2011, disseminating statewide the research initiatives launched by conference presenters.

Collaboration between the program and the gallery is an integral part of their historical development. The art history curriculum at the University was founded in fall 1988 by art historian Dr. Dunn, whose initial faculty appointment comprised duties as gallery director and slide curator. The curriculum originally covered western art history, prehistoric through contemporary times. Now, course offerings also include African American art; Native American art; women in the visual arts; medieval and renaissance women; heaven, hell, and apocalypse; history of photography; and Bible in image and text. Field trips to museums and galleries are offered each semester. Pennsylvania sites include the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Barnes Foundation and University Art Museum at the University of Pennsylvania. In New York City, students tour the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art and Cloisters. Trips to Washington, D.C., visit the National Gallery of Art, Holocaust Memorial Museum, National Museum of Women in the Arts and the Museum of the American Indian. Biennially in June, art history faculty lead a one-month seminar to Italy.

Art history faculty is engaged in research, community outreach and grantsmanship. The National Endowment for the Humanities thrice accepted Dr. Dunn into its summer fellowship programs at Cornell University, Cornell, N.Y., and Oxford University, England. Her local history research was supported by the Pennsylvania Humanities Council’s Commonwealth Speaker Program and "Humanities on the Road," broadcast by the Pennsylvania Cable Network, and by the Pennsylvania Commission on Women through publication of her "Legendary Ladies Making History in the Northeast Mountains Region." Twice students collaborated with Dr. Dunn in courses on women and local history and research at the Pennsylvania State Archives, Harrisburg. As a scholar-in-residence for the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission at the Anthracite Heritage Museum, Scranton, Dr. Miller-Lanning published a paper on the Lackawanna Iron Furnaces in "Pennsylvania History." She served as project fellow for the Arts Commentary: Perspectives on the Arts program, administered by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and Pennsylvania Humanities Council. Her research on contemporary art and local history culminated in the exhibition and workshop series "Anthracite Incorporated."

In 1988, the University’s art gallery emerged as the public face of the Art History Program under the directorship of Dr. Dunn, who initiated integrated exhibitions and gallery talks coordinated with course offerings. The gallery grew between 1991 and 2001 under the full-time direction of art historian Dr. Miller-Lanning. Relocation of the gallery to Hyland Hall and rededication in honor of Hope Cumming Horn (1920-2001) inaugurated a new mission: present exhibitions and programming designed to complement the University’s curricula; encourage campus and community collaborations; support regional artists; provide arts in education opportunities; and showcase students’ work.

Since 2001, the gallery has hosted exhibitions and programs featuring artwork and presentations by notable arts and humanities professionals. "Working Through the Past: Paintings by Samuel Bak," organized through the Pucker Gallery, Boston, Mass., and co-sponsored by the Judaic Studies Program at the University, showcased paintings by Bak, a Holocaust survivor. "Rayuela/Hopscotch: Fifteen Contemporary Latin American Artists," guest-curated by Robert Schweitzer, Maslow Collection, Scranton, highlighted the work of contemporary Latin American artists represented by galleries in New York City. "Made In America," organized by the Harwood Museum, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, N.M., featured work by Native American artist Jaune Quick-To-See-Smith. "Successions: African American Prints from the Steele Collection," organized by the Art Gallery, University of Maryland, College Park, Md., and co-sponsored by the University’s Office of Equity and Diversity, included a lecture by David Driskell.

As in the program, the role of art in local culture and history is also an important topic of consideration at the gallery. Since 2000, the gallery has presented a series of biennial exhibitions featuring "NEPA Regional Art" in collaboration with Marywood University, Keystone College and the Afa Gallery. Over the past five years, the program and gallery have also expanded their efforts to document local art and history through a series of exhibitions and catalogs, including "Building Scranton: The Architecture of George M.D. Lewis;" "P.W. Costello: Designer, Engrosser, Illustrator;" and "Ashcan Humanists: John Sloan and Jerome Myers." Works on loan to these exhibitions have come from the Athenaeum, Philadelphia; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City; Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, N.J.; and Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, Del. All have been funded in part by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

Forthcoming initiatives planned by the program and gallery will further the legacy of the past 25 years. Through the Hope Horn Endowment and a bequest from Governor and Mrs. William W. Scranton, the program is poised to become a leading voice in visual arts education in Northeastern Pennsylvania. An interdisciplinary major in Art History is being designed for delivery through the College of Arts and Sciences. The curriculum requires students pursuing careers in art to specialize in art history and related areas of study. A multi-disciplinary curriculum provides a firm foundation for graduate school, since art history is best studied in relationship to other humanities disciplines such as literature, history, theology, philosophy and languages.

Students are the heart’s blood of the program and gallery. Since 1988, more than 150 have graduated with a minor in Art History. Many have subsequently embraced careers in the visual arts such as art librarianship, art therapy, art education, art gallery administration, museum education, historic preservation and architecture. During the last 10 years, students have enrolled in graduate programs at the University of Colorado, Seton Hall, New York University, Rhode Island School of Design, the University of Iowa, the University of Vermont and the Bard School, to name a few. University students have competed successfully for internships at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, and the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C.

The most rewarding sign of increasing interest in art history on campus is the growing number of students applying for admission to the University’s individualized major. This new curriculum allows students to design a specialized program of study in areas not yet offered as majors by the University. Under the aegis of Dr. Dunn and fellow faculty mentors, students have created IMs by integrating two disciplines, such as art history/theology, art history/languages, and art history/sociology.

Two years short of the program’s 25th anniversary, Edward Besse graduated in May 2011 as the University’s first Art History major. His degree united Art History and Theology, and concluded with a thesis on Jesuit novitiate art in the Old and New Worlds. In fall 2011, Dana Marmo, who will begin her major in Archaeology and Art History, focusing on the classical world, will succeed Besse. Not to be outdone by their peers with Art History majors, two Art History minors will enter graduate school this fall: Nicole Smith will attend the Graduate Art History Program at Christies, New York City, while Eva Piatek will attend Temple University, Philadelphia. Hence, 2011 will go down in history as a banner year for University of Scranton Art History minors and majors, and faculty in the program and gallery will continue to produce stellar men and women … in the arts ... for others.