Fine Arts Department To Be Renamed

The Fine Arts Department in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) will soon have a new name that better reflects its purpose: to teach and study the history of art and architecture.

The FAS voted unanimously Tuesday to change the name to the Department of History of Art and Architecture as of July 1998.

Ioli Kalavrezou, Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Byzantine Art and department chair, said the current name no longer describes the discipline and is associated with the practice of art, rather than its history and criticism.

"The name sends out a confusing message," she said. "Nationally and internationally, we're perceived as a department of studio art. We also feel the current name obscures the relationship of our discipline to other humanities disciplines at Harvard."

Neil Levine, Emmet Blakeney Gleason Professor of Fine Arts, noted that "fine arts" is based on a hierarchy that distinguishes between painting, sculpture, and architecture, and the so-called decorative arts -- a distinction the department prefers to avoid.

They said the name-change proposal grew out of many and lengthy discussions by department members over the past 15 years.

In other business, the Faculty heard a report from William Todd, Dean of Undergraduate Education, on the first implementation of new summa cum laude legislation, as well as reports on a new study by the FAS Committee on Resources, Financial Relations Between FAS and the Central Administration.

The Faculty also awarded honorary A.M. degrees to the following recently tenured faculty members who do not already hold Harvard degrees: Lawrence Bobo (Afro-American Studies and Sociology); Lizabeth Cohen (History); Stephen J. Greenblatt (English); Robert D. Howe (Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences); Ernest Peralta (Molecular and Cellular Biology); Elizabeth Perry (Government); and Barbara F. Reskin (Sociology).

It also applauded several newly tenured faculty members who already hold Harvard degrees: David Cutler (Economics); Elhanan Helpman (Economics); David R. McCann (East Asian Languages and Civilizations); Katharine Park (History of Science and Women's Studies), Maryellen Ruvolo (Anthropology); and Andrew Strominger (Physics).