Linnea Wren
The tradition of presenting the Edgar M. Carlson Award for Distinguished Teaching to a Gustavus faculty member is now 18 years old. The board of trustees established this award to honor the former college president for his leadership and commitment to academic excellence at Gustavus. This year the award goes to Dr. Linnea Wren, department of art.
Linnea has spent most of her academic career as art historian at Gustavus. She has a blue-blooded academic pedigree, with undergraduate work at Radcliffe, a master’s degree from Harvard and a doctorate from Minnesota.
All of the students who nominated Linnea praised her skillful integration of the artwork from a particular time -statuary, door friezes, painted ceilings, cathedrals, paintings- with the social and cultural history of that time. A physics major commented that she “not only gained knowledge about art” but that Linnea taught her “how the events going on in one’s own country affect development of science, art and literature.” Linnea approaches the teaching of the history of visual arts not by merely cataloguing stylistic development but by getting the students to see these works in the context of the times when the work was created.
What also draws the rapt attention of Linnea’s students are her recountings of expeditions to Mexico and Europe. As another student said, these “personal experiences keep students attentive, interested and willing to learn.”
Students also wrote of the respect they have for her, a respect that flows from Linnea’s obvious respect for them. This mutual respect has encouraged her students to learn more about art history and the contributions that the visual arts have made to the human story.
One enthusiastic freshman said of Linnea’s course, “Art of the Western World,” “When Dr. Wren begins her lecture, a hush falls in the room. Every student, from the math major attempting the arts appreciation requirement to the art history major, sits in eager attentiveness, awed by Dr. Wren’s vast knowledge.” This store of knowledge is enthusiastically shared by Linnea with her students. A management major remarked, “The day she mentioned that she was a Harvard graduate, I said, ‘It figures!”‘
On behalf of your students, whom you have excited about art history, and your colleagues, for sustaining the liberal arts spirit at Gustavus, I present you with the 1989 Edgar.
Presented by John Lammert
Associate Professor of Biology
1988 Recipient of the Edgar M. Carlson Award