RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne. When President Obama told a crowd at an auto plant that young people could make a lot more money in skilled manufacturing than with an art history degree, Ann Collins Johns was offended. So this professor of art history at the University of Texas Austin dashed off an email to the president. Yesterday she got a handwritten apology. The president shared with Johns that, quote, art history was one of my favorite subjects in high school. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.