AMELIA KAHL
Barbara C. and Harvey P. Hood 1918 Senior Curator of Academic Programming
Coming to the Hood Museum during FYSEP allowed me to not only gain early access to a key resource on campus but also learn how to properly analyze and enjoy artwork. This is a skill I use even to this day, and I am so grateful for the opportunity.
—Riann Mohamud '29
The move to college is a significant one. The First-Year Student Enrichment Program (FYSEP) aims to smooth that transition by empowering first-generation and/or low-income students. The program's goal is for them to thrive academically and in the greater Dartmouth College community. For several weeks in the summer before their first year, students learn and live together while participating in sample classes with faculty, workshops, activities, and seminars designed to simulate life at the College.
The Hood Museum became involved with FYSEP in the summer of 2020 when the program, originating in 2009, expanded from one week to four. Dartmouth faculty teach a humanities class titled Culture, Identity, and Belonging (CIB) and visit the museum with their FYSEP students between one and three times. Students engage in close-looking exercises, as well as analysis and interpretation of works of art. They also partner for fun activities like a "describe and draw" exercise that encourages teamwork and demonstrates the complexities of communication.
Professor Doug Moody teaches CIB each year to FYSEP students and has been instrumental in these class visits: "When we go to the museum and work with the educators and curators, we slow down and look closely at art objects that inspire discussion and reflection, and that represent the diversity of human experience and the complexity of cultural and social structures. The Hood Museum of Art is a fantastic teaching resource and a true treasure for Dartmouth."
Work with FYSEP relates directly to the museum's mission to center art and people in teaching and learning through inclusive and robust academic, cultural, and civic engagements with art and its histories. Dartmouth first-year Jahaziel Estes reflected on the experience of visiting the museum during FYSEP:
Looking back on our visit to the Hood during CIB, I didn't realize at the time how transformative the "learning to look" process would be for me. Slowing down in front of a painting and being asked to observe—without immediately interpreting or judging—completely shifted how I approach art. Instead of trying to "get it right," I learned to sit with details, patterns, absences, and subtle choices the artist made. It made looking feel active and intentional rather than passive.
That practice has stayed with me beyond the museum. In Writing 5, especially, I found myself returning to that same patience—paying closer attention to language, structure, and nuance before jumping to analysis. "Learning to look" taught me that careful observation is not separate from interpretation; it deepens it. It's changed the way I read, write, and engage with complex material, encouraging me to trust the process of noticing first.
I'm really grateful we had that experience—it reshaped how I move through both art and ideas.