Tina Rivers Ryan

These reviews really do give a great representation of Tina, and it's easy to see why. The fact is, great professors are often polarizing, and Tina is no exception. She has an effective teaching style, with an approachable personality conveying a dense amount of information that is made easy to understand if you put in the effort. If you come to her class with an open mind, you will learn a ton. She is a tough grader on papers, but she gives good criticisms and guidance for how to rewrite your paper for a higher grade and just expects you to write well-thought arguments. She includes readings for every class, which greatly enhance the class and while not strictly necessary, if you don't do them you'll miss out on a lot of what's going on and only superficially understand the lectures. As these reviews show, if you're like 95% of students, you'll love her. She is accessible during office hours, and still takes time to help former students long after they've taken the class (especially if you go on to more Art History), which is why so many of us think highly of her. Unfortunately, if you have the stubborn arrogance to suggest that you know more about a subject matter than the professor (while simultaneously not being able to appreciate the depth of her arguments and differentiate them from wikipedia), if you are the type of humorless misanthrope to become enraged by the fact th…

Tina was my discussion leader for Crary's 19th century class and was fantastic. Even though she admitted that her speciality was 20th century, not 19th century, she seemed to really know her stuff. Discussion sections can sometimes really lag, but Tina was great at clarifying the often dense and theoretical reading, and also brought a lot of humor and enthusiasm to the class. She was also incredibly helpful in helping me to identify weaknesses on the midterm and improve for the final, as well as refine my essay outline.

I took 20th Century Art, expecting to be blown away by Branden Joseph. While Joseph did do a great job teaching, I was much more impressed with Elisabeth, aka Tina. Tina has been the best TA I have ever had at Columbia or Barnard—and this is coming from someone who has had a lot of TAs. She is extremely knowledgable, approachable, and straight-forward, and this is reflected in her teaching style. With Tina, don't expect an easy A—she can see through the BS that usually fills art history discussion sections. If you put in the work and really think about the readings before and after class, though, you will be rewarded for your efforts. Tina really goes out of her way to help her students understand the tough material Joseph assigns, and she is very willing to help students with their papers. In short, Tina is amazing, and you'll probably learn more in her class than the actual class itself.

Tina is a fantastic TA for this course. Although at first she seemed somewhat strict about the requirements to the point of being unfriendly, she was very understanding and accommodating, and very easy to talk to outside of class or section. Moreover, she was incredibly knowledgeable, very down-to-earth, and excellent at explaining what at times were very esoteric philosophical or critical concepts. With Tina as a TA, the otherwise unwieldy reading assignments are both easily understood and distilled down to their essence. Every week before section, she would send out discussion questions, which made readings more manageable as they guided the reader to the most important aspects of each reading. Also, I found her to be a fair grader, and if you apply what she goes over in section and what is discussed in class to the assignments, you should have no problem doing well. Highly recommended. Also, I hear she is teaching Art Hum next year, so if you have her for that prepare for a fun class.

Once again, someone *cough* Tina or her friends, is writing reviews for her because she desperately wants that Gold Nugget. Exhibit A: look at the review on January 18, 2015. This student mentions that he/she took her class “last year”. In the fall 2014, Tina didn’t even teach art humanities according to the course directory. In spring 2014, I was one of the students in her class, and my classmates can attest to the fact that there were NO freshmen in that class, thereby making one question the entire review. Exhibit B: Review on December 10, 2014. Not many students write a review a year after they’ve taken the course, yet this “student” wrote another glowing review of Tina. Seem similar to exhibit A? Exhibit C: Look at the number of disagrees with all the positive reviews of Tina. Exhibit D: Look at the writing style of the positive reviews. Do they seem similar/use similar adjectives/sentence structure? These reviews are extremely positive and completely unfair for students who want to get the whole picture of Tina. While she may be okay at teaching art humanities, her personality, particularly her stubborn nature and her arrogance, are a huge turnoff for the class.

Tina "Nobody calls me Elizabeth" Rivers is a great art history TA. I had her for Jonathan Crary's 19th century survey and when I saw she was doing a discussion section for Alexander Alberro's Barnard class on late 20th century art I took that too. She's got a lot of knowledge about the theorists and critics at play and she is able to pull them all out of her head to help clarify discussions or meetings. An hour with her can sometimes give you more information than 3 weeks of lectures (especially in Alberro's painfully slow case). She keeps it all focused though by sending guiding questions along with corresponding page numbers to find the answers for each reading so you know how to read the essays and find what she wants you to find. Depending on the group and topic she may race through a lot of incredibly dense theory or break down one idea into a simple concept but always brings a lot to the table. She'll work really hard for you and meet as often as necessary to discuss papers or ideas and give lots of notes but she won't punish you for not taking her up on that either. She runs a pretty relaxed discussion and any comment or question is always treated with appropriate respect and humor.

I took Art Hum with Tina as a freshman last year, and I consider myself really lucky to have had her as a professor. While it seems that some reviewers don't share my opinion, I can only speak of my own experience, which was excellent to say the least. That said, I won't argue that there are probably easier art hum teachers out there who won't push you to delve into the material like Tina does. She is a serious art historian and is fully prepared to offer a wealth of knowledge about the subject, for those who are willing to listen. As an economics major who may never again step foot in another art history or related course, I think it will carry some weight when I say that this was one of the most valuable classes I have ever taken. I say this because having taken art hum with Tina I now feel comfortable approaching works of art that before, would have intimidated me. Taking her class will give you the tools to interpret and unpack any work of art - from the Parthenon, to Pollock. She will teach you that art is not made for memorization, and that approaching art with curiosity and persistence can grant you a remarkable sense of understanding. Part of the reason I chose Columbia was for the unique opportunity that the Core presents - namely, the opportunity to learn about Western art and culture in a way that will be advantageous for years to come. And, I think many will agree…

Tina is an amazing professor. I was not looking forward to art hum that much, and certainly not any more excited about it after hearing other students' experiences with it. But, the way Tina taught the class made my experience fun and conducive to willful learning. She cared more about teaching her students how to understand and interpret the material than about meaningless regurgitation of dates and associations. I took so much more from her class than I expected to and I am truly grateful for that. Her tours of the Met and the MoMA were fantastic. Also, meeting her in office hours was a huge help to my understanding of the material and how to interpret it in my assignments. She was open reasonably often for in person meetings and always provided fast and fruitful feedback to e-mails.

Tina is an exciting, dedicated, friendly, and knowledgeable teacher. I'm an economics major; I've never really been interested in art, so I wasn't looking to this course. She succeeded not only in keeping my attention through the three-hour summer lectures, but in convincing me why good art matters. She's excellent at bringing complicated ideas down to a simple level. She's informal; she doesn't expect any background knowledge. And she's very willing to sit down with students and talk over ideas. I found her paper feedback in particular to be very helpful.

Tina is, hands down, an incredible professor. When I first signed up for Art Hum, I knew virtually nothing about art and was taking it to fulfill the requirement. However, after taking the class with Tina this past summer, I feel like she's truly helped me gain an understanding and appreciation for art. Her class lectures were very thorough, interesting and well-organized, and it’s clear that she put a lot of effort into making sure that she provided additional depth and explanation to supplement the presentation slides and handouts. She was really good about returning papers within just a few days, and more importantly, always included a lot of useful feedback to help us improve. In addition, she went above and beyond standard office hours in proactively offering other times when she could meet with us for help. Where Tina especially shined was on our field trips. Seeing a painting in a museum is so different from seeing it on a PowerPoint slide, whether it’s the vividness of the color or the texture of the canvas, and she did a great job not only explaining the often complex message each work of art was sending, but also asking critical, probing questions that would allow us to discover art on our own—and this approach was absolutely enlightening, better than any tour I've taken at several world-class museums. Art Hum was a great class, but what really made it stand out was…