Historical instructor

GAIL GEIGER

Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 2.80/5 from 20 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

What students say

Original student reviews · all captured dates

AH320 · course not matched
Quality 1/5Difficulty 5/5
I'm an Art History Major, Honors student and have a 3.8 overall GPA at UW-Madison. However, I am getting a C in Geiger's renaissance art course. She has unrealistic expectations and is completely disorganized (the class didn't even have a syllabus). When I went to her office asking how I could improve she told me that I wasn't working hard enough.
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AH201 · course not matched
Quality 1/5Difficulty 5/5
The most insufferable professor I have ever interacted with. The experience of her and her class landed me crying in my advisor's office, asking to undeclare my art history major (I was dissuaded by a grad student, thankfully). Disorganized, mean, careless, and all around poor teacher. Worst class I have ever taken.
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AH341 · course not matched
Quality 3/5Difficulty 5/5
Geiger is by far the hardest grader I have ever had-she literally expects you to remember everything from lecture and the readings for the exams. Her lectures and readings are disorganized. However she is very approachable in office hours and does want her students to succeed. I would avoid in the future unless you'e willing to put a ton of time.
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ARTHIST341 · course not matched
Quality 2/5Difficulty 4/5
She's willing to help students with their questions. But her reading material is a total disaster, so disorganized. It is painful going through the reading material to find things.
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ARTHIST425 · course not matched
Quality 4/5Difficulty 4/5
She is a great professor with a ton of knowledge. It seems like most of the raters on this site haven't taken art history classes before. Memorizing tons of artists/titles etc is normal. She may be disorganized but she is helpful and promotes good research techniques. All of my other professors just had me memorize, she made me think about the info
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ARTHI525 · course not matched
Quality 1/5Difficulty 5/5
SHOULD NOT BE AT UW! Terrible professor, terrible person. Harsh, condescending, uninspiring, a neanderthal with technology, irrational with her expectations and grading methodology, and insanely disorganized. She didn't have the syllabus completed until the very last day of class! An old school professor only interested in her own research.
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Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.

Classes with GAIL GEIGER

No teaching recorded in Fall 2026.

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Recorded teaching history

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Teaching history may be incomplete. Course pages contain course-specific feedback and citations.

Instructor identity & provenance
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