Teaching is the family business. My mother, grandmother, great aunt, were all teachers. My sons also seem to be following that path.

Growing up, I had vowed that I was never going to be a teacher.

Nonetheless, when I began my first teaching job forty years ago, I was surprised to discover how much I loved to teach. Standing up in front of a class, I was able to access a space deep inside myself and to communicate from there. I found that teaching was not simply the transmission of a certain amount of information, but rather the communication of a way of seeing. That excitement was the impetus for my return to graduate school for my Ph.D., and it kept me going throughout my teaching career. From the beginning I based my role on the etymological derivation of the word “educate”, to lead forth.

Although teaching requires a lot of energy and can sometimes be depleting, ultimately I found that I got back as much as I gave. So many of the ideas I have examined in my own research were first explored in the classroom. I found it a privilege to engage in conversations about art and ideas with a group of learners; every semester I learned something new from my students.

My courses spanned all levels from beginner to advanced. When I first started teaching, my upper level courses were related to my graduate specialization in the Middle Ages. I continued teaching in that area for the rest of my career.

The shift in my scholarly focus to reclaiming the work of women artists was almost immediately reflected in my teaching. I offered my first course on women artists in 1980. Since then I have devoted my career to teaching about women artists, working to ensure that their visions become part of our cultural memory bank. I was a pioneer. I created a stepped curriculum consisting of courses at all levels. These were cross-listed with the Women’s Studies Program and could be counted towards a major or minor in Women’s Studies. In turn they led to other interdisciplinary courses examining women’s artistic production.