Tuesday, January 29, 2002

Students Explore Ancient Mexican Art in a Distance Course, and Then in Person By BROCK READ In "The Ancient Art of Mexico," Michael K. Aakhus makes sure that his class receives first-hand exposure to the art it studies: Every year, he leads a spring-break field trip to Central America. This spring, though, Mr. Aakhus's ART 253 Title: "The Ancient Art of Mexico" Institution: University of Southern Indiana Instructor: Michael Aakhus, a professor of art When offered: Spring Enrollment: Twenty students Cost: The course costs $338.25; students pay separately for the trip. URL: A syllabus for the course is available here. students won't meet until the trip begins -- for the first time, the course is being offered through distance learning. Mr. Aakhus, a professor of art at the University of Southern Indiana, has taught a course covering ancient Mexican art since 1995; he started leading expeditions the following year. His class examines art produced by the indigenous peoples of Mexico and Central America, starting with the Olmecs, moving on through the Mayans and other tribes of the region's classical era, and culminating with the Aztec civilization. Mr. Aakhus also explores the impact of European conquests on Mesoamerican culture. Much of the course material comes from books the students purchase: a textbook on the art of Mesoamerica, one on its history, and the Popul Vuh, a Mayan sacred text. But Mr. Aakhus has also created a CD-ROM for the course. The disk includes more than 600 photographs -- most of which Mr. Aakhus took himself during trips to Mexico -- and an introductory text that describes the geography of Central America. On the course's Web site, Mr. Aakhus posts weekly assignments asking students to study and compare two works of art chosen from the CD-ROM gallery. Students post their analyses on the class discussion board. Mr. Aakhus helps to guide the discussions, but refers to them as "an exchange of ideas." He adds: "I don't like to take over too much." The highlight of the course, for students and for Mr. Aakhus, is the field trip, which lasts about a week. On one excursion, Mr. Aakhus took the class to the border of Guatemala and Mexico, where students explored rain forests, spent time with Indian tribes, visited a Mayan temple, and spoke with members of the Lacondon people, whose dialect is related to languages spoken in classical Mexico. This year, students will tour the baroque churches of Oaxaca, Mexico, which are marked by idiosyncratic indigenous design, according to Mr. Aakhus. The buildings, he says, offer his students a chance to learn about a number of Mexican arts, including wood-carving, tilework, and ceramics. Students draw on their experiences in the course's final project, in which they work with Mr. Aakhus to create an exhibition about the art they explored in depth on their trip. Mr. Aakhus supplies photographs, and members of the class write texts describing the artistic and cultural importance of the works the photographs depict. Mr. Aakhus reuses much of the material from exhibitions in future versions of the class. Although this semester he has spent much of the course's first weeks helping his students overcome technical problems, Mr. Aakhus says that the new online format is working well so far. Twenty undergraduates -- "a nice size for a distance course," he says -- have enrolled. Remaking the course for distance-education students has "taken a reexamination of the pedagogy that I would use," he says, "but it's a class I enjoy teaching." Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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