<p>There was an excellent article in this morning's WSJ about the Clark Art Institute near Williams College. There are now running an exhibition on Monet's work (I love Monet!) and this made me think of this as a potentially good topic for CC. </p>
<p>I have often argued that a student's experiences outside of the classroom are quite important in determining the quality of an overall academic experience. One of the areas that students might want to consider as part of their college search process is a school's own museum or proximity to/relationship with local art institutions. </p>
<p>If you have a good art museum at or near your school and it has had some impact on your undergraduate experience or college search process, then please share that with others. Thanks.</p>
<p>The Clark is near but not on the Williams campus; there is also a quite good Williams College art museum. The presence of the two museums certainly added an additional appeal to our various visits when we were Williams parents. I imagine that some students so to the museums a lot and others not at all. MassMoCA is nearby in North Adams, too, adding a more avant garde experience for students with cars and/or interest, but we ourselves have not been to it.</p>
<p>Cornell has an excellent art museum that's a stone throw's away from the arts quad (really ... you could hit the building with a stone, but you might get in trouble for it). </p>
<p>It didn't really play much of a decision when it came to picking a college, it was Cornell for me all the way. However, it's an excellent thing to have on campus. I've gone there on numerous occasions just to wander around and kill time before my next big assignment, or just to relax for a bit.</p>
<p>Wisconsin has a very nice museum and they are more than doubling the size. When completed it will be one of the largest college museums in the US.</p>
<p>As you might expect from one of the country’s top art schools, the Rhode Island School of Design has a truly outstanding art museum in Providence. It’s located on College Hill – in the heart of RISD’s “campus” and just a few short blocks from Brown University. The RISD Museum houses over 80,000 works of art, ranging from ancient Greek and Roman sculpture to French Impressionist paintings, from Chinese stone and terracotta sculpture to contemporary art in every medium, including textiles, ceramics, glass, and furniture.</p>
<p>Here’s a review from Frommer’s:</p>
<p>Prestigious RISD (pronounced Riz-dee) supports this ingratiating center of fine and decorative arts. Of the many excellent college and university museums in New England, this ranks near the top for the breadth of its collection. Those holdings include Chinese terra cotta, Greek statuary, and French Impressionist paintings. Probably of greatest interest are the works by such masters as Monet, C</p>
<p>Don't forget great museums not necessarily associated with the school, but right in the neighborhood. For example, right across the street from Pitt (practically on-campus) is the great Carnegie Museum. And Boston's Museum of Fine Arts is adjacent to Northeastern, and not too far from BU.</p>
<p>Yale has a very good art museum (<a href="http://artgallery.yale.edu/%5B/url%5D">http://artgallery.yale.edu/</a>) as well as a separate British Art Museum that is also highly regarded (<a href="http://ycba.yale.edu/index.asp)%5B/url%5D">http://ycba.yale.edu/index.asp)</a>. The art gallery has been trying recently to reach out to undergraduates - last spring, the gallery worked with a student group I am involved in to host a discussion on the ownership of culturally significant works of art, at which the curators of the gallery (as well as a NY Times journalist) shared their thoughts on and experiences with the issue with a group of undergrads (and gave us free food). It was quite an interesting experience.</p>
<p>Clark and MassMoCa are two of my favorite museums ever.</p>
<p>UChicago has two-- and they're both free-- the Oriental Institute (really, really, really spectacular) and the Smart Museum of Art, which is decent for a college campus, but not on the same level as other institutions' art museums.</p>
<p>and of course, the Field Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago are right nearby in the city.</p>
<p>UChicago is also RIGHT NEXT to the museum of science and industry.</p>
<p>I think most schools have museums on campus, i'd be willing to bet some of the ivies have really nice "revolutionary war" era museums. at least i think that would be really cool.</p>