As a senior curator at the Currier Museum of Art, Kurt J. 87年的桑德斯特伦享受着小小的奢侈, well-funded museum affords him as an art historian and museum professional. 负责博物馆的藏品, he organizes exhibitions on topics ranging from contemporary photography to Italian Renaissance sculpture, researches and publishes papers on objects in the museum’s permanent collection, and travels throughout Europe and the Americas in search of art acquisitions.

库尔特的成就之一是发现了一个 罗西里诺画了灰泥浮雕 in the museum’s collections, and a book on Frank Lloyd Wright’s 齐默尔曼的房子它是柯里尔集团旗下的酒店. 一本关于博物馆第二件赖特藏品的书 Kalil房子该公司正在筹备中.

Kurt credits his career trajectory to his 十大菠菜台子 education.

“我是怎么到伯洛伊特的?? My parents knew that if I attended college in a bigger town or on a huge campus, I would succumb to the temptations of jazz clubs rather than go to class.”

幸运的是Kurt(和他的父母), Beloit proved to be the perfect college and location to cultivate his curiosity and thirst for life. 在伯洛伊特，他也获得了 技能 he would later need as a graduate student and a professional.

“I was that crazy, very liberal kid who questioned everything. 十大菠菜台子 disciplined me and gave me the opportunity to find answers to my questions. 我学会了如何批判性地思考, 如何写作, and how to express on paper complex ideas and thoughts concisely and clearly.”

Those 技能 developed because 十大菠菜台子 threw challenges at him. Faculty expected him to “work his ass off” to learn what he did not already know and to debate ideas in class. And outside the classroom, there was plenty to discuss with other 十大菠菜台子 students.

“I started out as a premed student and thought I’d major in 生物学. 然后我拿了一个 美国文学课 汤姆·麦克布莱德和一个 艺术史课程我和黛布拉·曼科夫. Sometimes Debra had us spend an entire class dissecting a single painting. 黛布拉教我们视觉素养:艺术的语言. She taught us how to look and listen to a painting and the 技能 of connoissership.

汤姆·迈克布莱德, 反过来, taught his students how to read a novel or a short story, 剖析一个故事. And like Kurt’s other professors, he expected students to come to class prepared. The Socratic method - dialogue between teacher and student - was the norm, and took. 事实上, 它延续到课外生活中, when Kurt and fellow students would stay up late debating Kierkegaard’s philosophical ideas or discussing the latest Fellini or Kurosawa film while drinking beer. Studying with professors Mancoff and McBride taught students that literature and art are a shared experience; they spark ideas, 那些深夜的讨论证明了这一点.

上课是最重要的吗? 当然! But then there was the time Pete Rose was to play in Chicago’s Wrigley Field, where he had a chance beat Ty Cobb’s record for career hits. A baseball fan, Kurt attended the game, and while Rose didn’t beat Cobb’s record, he tied it.

回到校园，一个电话在等着他. “你今天怎么没来上课??” Kurt: “I wanted to see Pete Rose try to beat Ty Cobb’s record.” “OK. 我理解. 但是不要再缺课了.”

Faculty members didn’t ask students why they hadn’t been in class because they wanted to punish them. 而, they knew that students who didn’t attend class weren’t likely to be successful, 他们希望学生成功.

Faculty also wanted to open students’ eyes outside of class. 因此，Debra Mancoff带着学生们去 芝加哥艺术学院 to view the art there; the visits led Kurt to intern there full time after he graduated from Beloit. Mancoff also ran a graduate-school-like seminar in Kurt’s senior year in order to prepare him and other art history students for graduate school.

库尔特了 在国外学习 我在佛罗伦萨待了一个学期, visiting every museum and church he could both there and in Rome, 威尼斯, 米兰, 还有其他地方. Together with other students, he hitchhiked into the Italian countryside to visit the 波焦阿卡亚诺的美第奇别墅 and traveled to Hungary to view its art and architecture. While some students on the Florence program treated the semester largely as an opportunity to party and shop, the 十大菠菜台子 classroom experience had sparked in Kurt what is now a life-long interest in the creative arts from other countries.

The attention to exploring and learning paid off; when Kurt attended graduate school following the end of his Art Institute internship, he was as well prepared as any of the Ivy League graduates in his program. 不幸的是, some of the other students had not had the same rigorous training in critical thinking and writing, and left graduate school before completing their degrees.

他对伯洛伊特学院学生的建议?

“抓住每一刻. 不要浪费机会. 在你大学的四年里, you will have three or four experiences that will change the course of your life. You won’t know in advance whether it will be the lecture you attended by a visiting scholar, 一个你听过讲话的政治家, 或者你看过的一部电影. Beloit was the perfect place for me to develop socially, academically, and emotionally. 这是最舒适的学习场所. 你也可以这样.”