Postgraduate Certificate Program in Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Protection

ARCA's Postgraduate Certificate Program in Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Protection is an unaccredited multidisciplinary “postgraduate” certificate program that specializes in the study of art crime and cultural property protection. The course programming consists of 10–11 weeks of academic instruction at the postgraduate level and is hosted in Amelia, Italy. The instruction covers a wide variety of theoretical and practical elements of art and heritage crime and examines art crime's interconnected world of art criminals, investigators, lawyers and art historians. The courses include comprehensive lectures and discussions exploring art crime, its nature and impact, as well as what is currently being done to mitigate it.
Program.
The program includes approximately 25 lecture hours per week of customized instruction over the course of one summer, for a total of approximately 250 contact hours with teaching professionals. This format allows students to complete the classroom portion of the program onsite, before writing their thesis remotely. ARCA selected this configuration to facilitate both student and allied professional enrollment, to ensure that both groups might undertake the program of study during one summer between academic advanced degrees or during a brief sabbatical or hiatus from work.
This program is currently being run under the auspices of the association and is considered a professional development program and not a master's degree program. While the courses comprising the Postgraduate Certificate Program may be used as evidence in support of a student's application for admission to a graduate degree program, the certificate itself is not considered to be a prerequisite, completing the program does not guarantee admission into a graduate study program. Prerequisites for this program require that applicants have completed an undergraduate degree by the start date of the program. The program has run each summer since 2009.
Faculty.
Recent instructors and lecturers have included:
Chair of the International Advisory Board of the Australian Research Council's Center of Excellence in Policing and Security, Former Director of the Australian Institute of Criminology (1987-1994)
Courses are supplemented with field classes and guest lecturers. Contingent on available funding, ARCA also invites distinguished novelists, journalists, and essayists to participate in ARCA's Writers-in-Residence program in year, held in conjunction with the Postgraduate Certificate Program.
Past Writers-in-Residence include: Christos Tsirogiannis Forensic Archaeologist, Illicit antiquities researcher: Dr. Susan Douglas, University of Guelph, Art History Department: Dr. Laurie Rush, who has assisted in training armed forces in safeguarding cultural heritage during armed conflict; Dr. Neil Brodie, noted archaeologist and researcher into the illicit antiquities trade; and Dr. Larry Rothfield, cofounder and former director of the Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago, and author of the book, The Rape of Mesopotamia, a detailed study of the looting of the Baghdad Museum and the protection of antiquities during conflict.