All courses encourage students to develop skills in oral and written communication, as well as critical thinking.  Courses further prepare students for independent research on original works and art, often making use of local collections, such as the Denver Art Museum. 

Our graduate program equips students with a solid historical and theoretical foundation.  Many of our graduates obtain jobs in museums or continue on to top Ph.D. programs across the country.  A fundamental component of the graduate curriculum is the Visiting Scholar Program.  Each academic year, three to five highly regarded art historians and critics participate in the Department's Visiting Scholar Seminar, presenting a public lecture on their research and scholarly work, and working closely with graduate students in art history.

Art history resources at the University of Colorado include the Art and Architecture Library and two collections housed in the Art and Art History Department building: the Colorado Collection (comprising some 6,000 works of art) and the Visual Resources Collection (VRC).  The latter houses a teaching and research collection of over 350,000 35mm slides representing historical and contemporary art, architecture, and other visual and material culture from around the world.  It maintains a collection of videotaped lectures and interviews from the department's Visiting Artist Program and provides audiovisual equipment for use in the department. The VRC currently is currently developing a digital image collection that will be available to all faculty and students at the university.