Williams College, in collaboration with the Clark Art Institute, offers a two-year MA program in the history of art. The curriculum provides the foundation for graduates to embark on academic and curatorial careers, or to pursue professional opportunities in galleries, non-profit arts foundations, and arts education. The graduate program welcomed its first class of students in 1972, and has been based in the Manton Research Center on the Clark’s campus since the building’s opening the following year. Together, the graduate program and RAP create a rich intellectual community that defines the Clark’s mission to pursue advanced research in the arts and visual culture. Staff from RAP teach in the graduate program, alongside Clark curators. Students are invited to participate in the Clark fellows’ seminars, attend lectures and colloquia, and work as research assistants for the fellows in residence. Through these avenues, graduate students take part in the depth and breadth of current research, discourse, and scholarship underway in the fields of art history, visual studies, and material culture, as represented by the fellows in residence at RAP and the visiting scholars, curators, and artists who convene at the Clark. Every June graduating MA students present their qualifying papers in a symposium that is a highlight of the academic year at the Clark, and an opportunity for the students to share their research with the wider intellectual and arts communities of the Berkshires.