Mara Witzling
Professor of Art History and
Coordinator of Women's Studies

In the world of art, memories come in the form of pictures. I vividly remember back 10 years ago when I was in college to a dark room somewhere in the Paul Creative Arts Center, with an image of a Renaissance painting projected onto the screen. The scene in the painting is burned into my memory. But, even stronger than this recollection is my memory of Professor Mara Witzling. Her ebullient smile, her passion for art, and her ability for transferring that passion to her students almost swayed me to a career in art history.

Our last class assignment was to bring in a representative object and describe it. So, it only seems appropriate 10 years later that I pick an object for Professor Witzling. Her object is a lamp, one that brightly shines upon anyone sitting in her space.

Witzling says that she is “captivated with the world’s luminescence.” Sit down with this professor for five minutes, and you will feel the glow of luminescence as she discusses “the sparkle of the visual world” and laughs about her excitement for teaching, saying “I can’t help myself, I just explode!”

“There is a feeling one gets when observing Professor Witzling—that between teacher and student there is mutual admiration and a shared enthusiasm for the subject,” says colleague Professor Eleanor Hight of the Art History Department. “The students clog the hall as they follow her like the Pied Piper to her office after class.”

In fact, Witzling isn’t interested in being a pied piper with spellbound followers. Worshipful relationships make her uncomfortable, but relationships of shared connection are key to her teaching.

She explains, “‘Education’ comes from the Latin word educere—to lead forth—and that is the part I like about it. Education is engaged, active interaction between teacher and students. This is created with an atmosphere of openness.”

A feeling of openness is what a visitor to Witzling’s office in the Women’s Studies Program immediately feels; she has combined her dual interests in art and women’s studies by teaching in both programs. Quilts line the walls of the outer office, and comfortable, coffee shop-style couches invite the visitor to prop up her feet and stay a while.

Witzling’s teaching style is very open. “I teach with discussions, small groups, and response papers. The teaching that I find less interesting is simply lecturing. I would rather work with the connections that people are making than give my narrative,” she explains.

Sometimes, students making their own connections do not always agree with her interpretation of art, but she takes this in stride as the “stimulating” aspect of teaching. Witzling says that she loves to discuss art with people. Aptly put by a student in a class evaluation, “She lives and breathes this stuff.”

Says the professor, “To me, works of art have a kind of magical power.”

Perhaps Witzling is more like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, with her magical ruby slippers and engaging enthusiasm, than the Pied Piper. Her students accompany her down the yellow brick road, learning, along the way, to look at the world from a different perspective.

“She was the first teacher to ever challenge my fears by asking me to define my identity as a young woman,” writes recent alumna Kimberly Bossi. “She told me that anything is possible.”

—Amy Seif,
Institute for the Study of Earth,
Oceans and Space