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A group of college students looking around a museum gallery

Class Visits to Dumbarton Oaks

Dumbarton Oaks enthusiastically invites proposals for class visits by Harvard faculty and undergraduate and graduate students.

Dumbarton Oaks enthusiastically invites proposals for class visits by Harvard faculty and undergraduate and graduate students. For reasons of space and cost, we can only accommodate classes of twelve students or fewer, so these visits work best with smaller teaching formats like seminars and conference courses. We will consider proposals that relate to Dumbarton Oaks’ three areas of study and that integrate its special collections. Resources that might be of particular interest include:

  • The museum’s Byzantine and Pre-Columbian art collections, including coins, seals, and textiles
  • The Rare Book Collection, with particular strengths in garden history, botanical works, illustrations, as well as facsimiles of Byzantine and Pre-Columbian manuscripts
  • The historic garden, including extensive garden archives

Depending on the proposal and the resources of the Harvard department(s) in question, Dumbarton Oaks may offer (1) reimbursement of economy round-trip travel from Cambridge to Washington, DC, for one or two faculty members and their students; (2) lunch in the campus Refectory; and (3) one night’s accommodation, depending on the duration of the visit and availability. Proposals for cost sharing, in which faculty members have secured separate funding from the university or other sources, are encouraged.

Faculty members are urged to plan visits that promote interaction of their students with Dumbarton Oaks staff and fellows. Proposals should address the relevance of particular Dumbarton Oaks collections to the class and summarize the main questions or topics that will be addressed during the visit. In all cases, we would be grateful to receive a follow-up report for institutional use.

To submit a class visit request please email directorsoffice@doaks.org.

“Thanks so much . . . for your time, interest, and generosity. This field trip made a crucial difference in the students' learning (not to speak of my own learning experience!). I knew it was going to be special, but I had not expected to see this quick transformation in them. They found out about so much while being relaxed about everything and genuinely enjoying it—the way learning should be.”
—Racha Kirakosian, Associate Professor of German and the Study of Religion, Harvard University