A former student says that Bates art historian Rebecca Corrie "has this sense of, 'We're all in this together, we're going on this intellectual journey, I'm going to treat you as a scholar.'

"The student gets a chance to feel like a functioning intellect very early," says Kathleen Schowalter '95, who studied with Corrie and is now an art historian herself, at Beloit College. "That was what hooked me."

Phillips Professor of Art and Visual Culture at Bates, Corrie is one of this country's few outstanding specialists in 13th-century Italian art. In that field, "there isn't anybody that doesn't know who she is," Schowalter says.

Also expert in Crusader, Islamic and Byzantine art, Corrie is known as an energetic and innovative scholar. New York's Met and the Getty in Los Angeles are among the art museums that have benefited from her scholarship.

She sees art history as a portal to myriad other aspects of history —for instance, economics and politics. "I'm endlessly curious about the past, and endlessly curious about other cultures," Corrie says.

To students who share her passion for art history, Corrie offers loyalty and an encyclopedic knowledge of both the scholarship and the scholars. She likes to fast-track students into the field and give them deep context, divulging not only the art's history but the historians' debates and personalities.

"I really do like the students, and I like to see them do the things that they love to do," Corrie says.