Always FREE & Open to the Public
Contact
Search
Always FREE and Open to the Public
Contact
Search

Ways to Teach at the Museum

From class visits and academic exhibitions to activations of the Collections Hub, the Smart offers many ways to infuse your university teaching practice with object-based learning. Whichever type of academic engagement you choose, Feitler Center staff are eager to collaborate on tailoring the experience to your specific course learning goals.
in-depth engagement with the Smart’s collections and exhibitions

The Feitler Center transforms the Smart into a resource for university teaching and learning across disciplines. Teach with objects from the collection in a classroom-style space at the Smart or bring your class to explore a current exhibition. View Schedule a Class Visit for request deadlines and form submissions.

Request a Visit
"Arts of China" course in the Smart's Education Study Room, 2023.
A ever-changing in-gallery showcase

Launched in fall 2025, the Collections Hub features a continually rotating array of collection materials. Discover objects that have been specially chosen for short-term display based on class visits, student projects, art research, and Smart programs.

Installation view, 2025. Photo by Michael Tropea.
Academic exhibitions with UChicago's College core

In winter 2019, the Feitler Center for Academic Inquiry launched Smart to the Core, an ambitious new exhibition series designed to expand object-centered teaching across disciplines in the University of Chicago’s celebrated College Core. The series provides students and faculty with primary source material for discussion, questioning, and interpretation, while also opening a window into the intellectual life of the University for the broader public.

Patrick Morrissey of the University of Chicago’s English Department teaches the “Poetry and the Human” class at the Smart Museum of Art’s “Poetry is Everything” exhibition on January 25, 2024. (Photo by Jason Smith)
Previous Smart to the Core Exhibitions

in partnership with the Social Sciences sequence “Power, Identity, Resistance”

in partnership with the Humanities sequence “Poetry and the Human”

  • Medium / Image (2021)

    in partnership with the Humanities sequence “Media Aesthetics”

  • Embodying the Self (2019)

    in partnership with the Social Sciences sequence “Self, Culture, and Society”

Request a University Class Visit

The Feitler Center supports several forms of academic engagements for university classes, designed around collection objects or in-gallery exhibitions.

Request a Class Visit