Major Moment: Laurel Gabbard '26

 Laurel Gabbard '26 is a tour guide in the Admissions Office, vice president of Craft Collective, a teaching assistant, and an archival research assistant in the Spanish Department, intern in the Enrollment Communications Office, and much more. Below, she tells us about her journey to declaring a double major in History of Art and Spanish with a Museum Studies minor.

Entering Bryn Mawr, which departments interested you?    

I have always been interested in the humanities, primarily in history and language. During my senior year of high school, while taking AP Art History and making my final college decisions, I was really drawn in by Bryn Mawr’s History of Art department, and it seemed like a great way to combine my passion for art and creativity with my interests in history.  

Which courses helped shape your academic path?   

I knew I was interested in History of Art, but was also open to other majors, and took classes across disciplines my first year at Bryn Mawr to try out different subjects and see if anything else caught my eye. I took Introduction to Renaissance Art during my freshman spring, and I was hooked! I loved getting to interpret these works of art that have been around for so long and trying to imagine new ways of seeing things people have looked at for hundreds of years. I declared the major as soon as I was able to!  

I had originally planned to be a Spanish minor, but I ended up loving the offerings that the Bryn Mawr Spanish department had so much that I took enough classes to become a major without planning to do so! I had always loved taking Spanish in high school, but getting to take high-level Spanish courses that focused on niche literature, film, and history has really informed my interests within the language and within the field of art history as well.  

Tell us about a favorite course that sparked your curiosity. 

My favorite class that I have taken in the History of Art department was Topics in Material Culture: Textile Dyes, in Spring 2025. This was an upper-level History of Art seminar with Professor Sylvia Houghteling, where we focused on the history of textiles around the world in relation to pigments, weaving, natural dyes, art practices, and sustainability. We took tons of field trips, and my personal favorite was to a natural dye workshop in Lancaster County, PA, where we were able to learn about natural dye and sustainability practices in a contemporary context, while also getting to bring our own natural fibers to dye using indigo, cochineal, madder, iron, and marigold, to name just a few. Our final project for the class included a community dye exhibition at Bryn Mawr, where we used our knowledge of art historical dye practices to create an exhibition on campus where community members could bring items to dye using vats the class had put together!  

My favorite class that I’ve taken in the Spanish department is Latin American Art and the Question of the Masses, taught by Professor Martín Gaspar. It perfectly combined my two majors, and I was able to develop my passions within the field of history of art through this course, while focusing on a Latin American context. We got the chance to take a class field trip to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to see the exhibit Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100, and we got to see tons of paintings that we had talked extensively about in class!  

"This time abroad inspired my Spanish thesis, which I am writing about Spanish film depicting the South of Spain, specifically Granada and the mythologized tales that surround it." 

Tell us about a time you were able to put learning into action.  

In the fall of 2024, I studied abroad in Granada, Spain, where I lived with a host family, took all my classes in Spanish, and was fully immersed in the language at all times of the day. I felt really prepared by Bryn Mawr’s Spanish department to spend that time in Spain and feel comfortable communicating and connecting. This time abroad inspired my Spanish thesis, which I am writing about Spanish film depicting the South of Spain, specifically Granada and the mythologized tales that surround it.  

I have also had the opportunity to intern at a couple of different art and archival institutions during my time at Bryn Mawr. Last summer, I received funding from the Career and Civic Engagement Center to go to Santiago, Chile and work in the archives at a university for the summer, which allowed me to gain experience working in my desired field in Spanish, which I will carry with me forever! This summer spent in Chile also inspired my History of Art thesis, which I am in the process of writing about a Chilean performance artist who I was lucky enough to see in an exhibit at a museum in Santiago. Beginning last fall, I started working on an archival research project within the Spanish department, investigating the holdings of 29 boxes in Special Collections, and using my archival experience and language abilities with the eventual goal of publishing this research with my professor.  

Finally, this semester, I am interning at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia with the Praxis Program as part of my Museum Studies minor and have been doing hands-on collection and archival work there, which has been an incredible way to round out my last semester of college. 

What advice would you give to a first year in the process of declaring a major(s)? 

Take the class that catches your eye; you are drawn to it for a reason! Your first year is about exploring courses, and Bryn Mawr gives you the time to figure out what it is that you’d like to study. Sometimes, it will be the courses you least expect that call to you, so trust your gut, even if it means pushing yourself out of your comfort zone!