The Office of the Provost, together with the London Center and the Office of International Programs, is very pleased to announce that Meghan Callahan, Ph.D. (Rutgers University), M.A. (Syracuse University) has been selected to serve as the new Director of the Ithaca College London Center.
Dr. Callahan is an art historian, and an experienced study abroad professional. She will be coming to Ithaca College from the Syracuse University London program, where she has served as the Assistant Director of Teaching & Learning since 2016. At Syracuse in London, Dr. Callahan focused on curriculum development, managing faculty positions, instructing faculty in online learning techniques, evaluating teaching, and supporting the student experience in London. She worked with faculty on best practices for inclusion and student success, provided support for students requiring academic accommodations, and successfully transitioned over 50 classes to online learning as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to her administrative work, Dr. Callahan also taught for the Syracuse London program, where she developed and offered courses such as Makers and Markets: Italian Art in Britain, and Women and Art: London and the UK.
Dr. Callahan’s experience in the field of international education includes two years as the Resident Director of the Cornell Brown Penn UK program from 2014-2016, where she worked with 200 students per term, liaising with parents and staff at three US universities, and coordinating with 25 UK universities. She developed emergency protocols, planned and implemented events and trips for students, provided pastoral care of students enrolled in the program, managed budget planning, and facilitated future partnerships and exchanges.
In 2016-2017, Dr. Callahan also served as a non-voting observer on the Executive Board of the Association of American Study Abroad Programmes/UK (AASAP/UK), where, as a member of the Diversity Committee, she planned a series on expanding and improving access and support for LGBTQIA, first-generation, minority, and disabled students studying abroad.
Dr. Callahan’s experience as an art historian, scholar, and instructor spans more than two decades working in the US, the UK, and Italy. Highlights of Dr. Callahan’s experiences include living and working in Florence, Italy for a number of years as an instructor for the Syracuse University program in Florence, where she lectured to study abroad students at sites across Italy. From 2005-2006, Dr. Callahan was visiting assistant professor of Art History at Wells College in Aurora, NY, where she had sole responsibility for departmental administration. There, she created and taught classes including surveys of western art and specialized upper-level art history courses, in addition to creating and supervising internships. In 2009-10, Dr. Callahan was a lecturer at the Workers’ Educational Association in London, where she created and taught Avant-garde Art in Europe and America, 1895-1945. Dr. Callahan provided maternity coverage as an associate lecturer at Birkbeck College, University of London in Spring 2013, where she co-taught Art and Architecture in Europe 1250-1400.
In addition to her work in higher education, Dr. Callahan worked in fine arts consulting from 2009-2013 as a research associate and editorial assistant at Patricia Wengraf Ltd. in London, where she liaised with museum curators, dealers, and private collectors; created and maintained databases for the exhibition catalog, edited and wrote text for the exhibition catalog, journals, and website; maintained the company website and image files, and identified and solved problems of attribution. From 2006-2008, Dr. Callahan was a Samuel H. Kress Foundation Post-Doctoral Curatorial Fellow in the Medieval and Renaissance Galleries Project of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. There, she worked with museum colleagues, outside contractors, and academics on display and digital projects, cataloged museum objects, and wrote texts for databases, labels and the website.
Dr. Callahan’s selected publications include:
- “Studying Abroad from Abroad: Moving from onsite to online learning in the wake of COVID-19,” Teaching the Early Modern World in the Era of COVID- 19, Sixteenth Century Journal 51, no. S1 (2020), https://www.escj.org/blog/studying-abroad-abroad-moving-onsite- online-learning-wake-covid-19.html
- “Nuns’ Networks: Letters from Suor Domenica da Paradiso at La Crocetta in Renaissance Florence.” In Convent Networks in Early Modern Italy, eds. S. Weddle and M. Dunn, Series: Europa Sacra. Religion, Society, and Identity, 25, Brepols, 2020, 53-84.
- “Miraculous Images at the convent of La Crocetta in Renaissance Florence.” In Saints, Miracles and the Image: Healing Saints and Miraculous Images in the Renaissance. eds. S. Cardarelli and L. Fenelli, Brepols, 2019, 203-216.
- “Preaching in a Poor Space: Savonarolan influence at Sister Domenica’s Convent of La Crocetta in Renaissance Florence,” in Patronage, Gender & the Arts in Early Modern Italy: Essays in Honor of Carolyn Valone, eds. K. McIver and C. Stollhans, Editors. Italica Press, 2015, 211-230.
- with Donal Cooper, “Sacred Space in the Modern Museum: Redisplaying the Santa Chiara Chapel in the V&A’s Medieval and Renaissance Galleries” V&A Online Journal 5, Spring 2013, http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/journals/research-journal/issue-no.-5- 2013/sacred-space-in-the-modern-museum-researching-and-redisplaying-the- santa-chiara-chapel-in-the-v-and-as-medieval-and-renaissance-galleries
Please join us in giving Dr. Callahan a warm welcome to the Ithaca College London Center, and to the Ithaca College community. She will begin at the London Center on April 18, 2022, and will be working with our current Interim Director, Catherine Weidner, to familiarize herself with the program and prepare for our Summer and Fall 2022 London Center cohorts. We look forward to working with her, and are excited to see the contributions she will make to the ICLC.