For an art historian, there may be no better city in the United States in which to live than New York. The breadth and depth of museum and gallery choices is staggering. For Nina Rowe, Ph.D., assistant professor art history, the fact that Manhattan is her hometown, and that her mother previously taught in Fordham’s English department, where her husband is now a faculty member, is simply icing on the cake.

“It’s so good to be back,” says Rowe, who lives near the Cloisters, a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art dedicated to the art and architecture of the Middle Ages. It is a favorite spot for her, as she also teaches in Fordham’s medieval studies program. “It’s the greatest place in the world to be an art historian.”

Rowe has been at Fordham’s Department of Art History and Music on the Rose Hill campus since the fall of 2004, two years after receiving a doctorate in art history at Northwestern University. She spent nearly 20 years away from New York, studying languages and art at Oberlin College, the University of Texas at Austin and in Florence, Italy, where she discovered her passion for medieval art. She previously held visiting faculty positions at the University of Notre Dame and Middlebury College, and was an adjunct assistant professor at DePaul University. ...