Museum Studies in Motion October 2010
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Be at the Center of Things.
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Volume 3, Issue 1
NEWSLETTER OF THE MUSEUM STUDIES PROGRAM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE
How Was Your Internship?
Students share their summer 2010 work experiences.
Robin Valencia catalogs artwork while the Longwood team visits a proposed garden site with Faith Kuehn, Plant Industries Administrator at the Delaware Department of Agriculture.
REBECCA PINEO (Longwood - Public Horticulture) I’m a Fellow in the Longwood Graduate Program for Public Horticulture, so my “internship” experience was managing our Professional Outreach Project. This is a summer-long venture in which all ten Longwood Graduate Fellows work together to complete a public horticulture project on behalf of another organization. For this year’s project, we developed a conceptual plan for a proposed therapeutic and community garden on the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services’ (DHSS) Holloway Campus in New Castle, DE. The garden is being developed as collaboration between several local agencies, including DHSS, the Delaware Department of Agriculture, the Delaware Center for Horticulture, the UD Cooperative Extension, and the UD Center for Disabilities Studies. We started the project by investigating stakeholder wants and needs through a focus group, interviews, and a survey, and then by creating a prioritized list of elements to include in the design. (con’t pg. 4)
ROBIN VALENCIA (History) This past summer I interned at the Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs for the Department of State located in Dover, DE. This department houses collections from museums all over the state as well as objects that belong to the state directly. My project was to catalog and photograph the artwork collections of Jack Lewis, Howard Schroeder, and Orville Houghton Peets. Mostly working in watercolors, they each represent a different style in depicting the Delaware landscape and its people. They also worked in other locations around the world and a small sampling of these works are present in the collections. In addition to cataloging artwork, I got a chance to work with other historical artifacts, such as ladies’ handbags and fans, and participate in other duties such as inventorying the state’s museums. With these various experiences, my internship became a challenging, fun, and valuable learning experience. In fact, I actually plan on going back during my winter break to volunteer. Overall it was a wonderful experience and I can’t wait to go back!
In this issue... Summer Internships, pg. 1
Director’s Message, pg. 2
Green Museum Course, pg. 2
Marvelous in Missouri, pg. 3 Contact Us, pg. 4
www.udel.edu/museumstudies
Director’s Message KATHERINE GRIER, PHD kcgrier@udel.edu I’m writing this on my laptop in a room full of boxed supplies, books, and office odds and ends. Yes, Museum Studies is moving! We now have our own suite of offices at 77 East Main Street. Tracy Jentzsch (staff assistant), Kate Duffy (our new graduate assistant), Hillary Mohaupt (supplemental staff member), and I will work from here. The space also houses our Museum Studies lending library, a meeting room where we will hold classes starting in the spring 2011 term, and room for our adjunct faculty to stash their stuff and meet with students. So things are hopping! I am teaching the core Museum Studies course, with an enrollment of eighteen from five different departments and programs. Frank McKelvey is leading MSST 601: Curatorship and Collections Management, this term; his students are getting lots of hands-on
experience including building a new collections storage room for the Newark Historical Society. For our January public service project, we are forming an “Inventory SWAT Team” for the Laurel Historical Society in Laurel, DE. We’ll be blogging about that twoweek project as it takes place.
Students are building a new collections storage room for the Newark Historical Society. The support we receive from Museum Studies alumni is heartening as we revitalize the program. Please send us news of your professional achievements; photos are welcome, too. We’d love to add your news to our website, which has received a facelift courtesy of the university’s Office of Communication Management. And, if you are planning a gift to the University of Delaware, I hope that you will consider specifying the Edward A. Alexander Endowment of the Museum Studies Program as the beneficiary of your generosity.
Upcoming Course: The Green Museum The Museum Studies Program will offer a new one-credit online course in early spring 2011. The Green Museum will focus on what it means for museums to be “green,” exploring how going green affects decisionmaking about museum buildings, practices and programs. Offered in partnership with the Tri-State Coalition of Historic Places, the course is a pilot for two new projects of the Museum Studies Program. It is the program’s first online course, offered through the University of Delaware’s Professional and Continuing Studies program. It will also be the second in a series of courses designed to offer opportunities for professional development for paid and non-paid museum
staff at small to mid-sized museums. The course will allow graduate students and practicing professionals to share insights with each other in the online classroom. The course will be taught by Sarah Brophy, an independent consultant based in Easton, Maryland, who specializes in helping museums and other cultural institutions become environmentally and financially sustainable. She is co-author with Elizabeth Wylie of The Green Museum and author of Is Your Museum GrantReady? Sarah Brophy also writes two blogs: Sustainable Museums and The People’s Guide to Museums. To register for The Green Museum, contact Tracy Jentzsch at jentzsch@udel.edu. - HILLARY MOHAUPT, MA
Dear Alumni: What’s new with you? Email news to museumstudies@udel.edu! 2
Museum Studies in Motion - University of Delaware - October 2010
Museum Studies Alumni News
Marvelous in Missouri The story of two Missouri museums, two prestigious awards, and two Museum Studies Program alumni.
The Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum. The Andrew County Museum & Historical Society. Both are museums in small Missouri towns—but what else do they have in common? First, both employ University of Delaware Museum Studies alumni in leadership positions. Second, both organizations received Missouri’s prestigious 2010 Governor’s Humanities Award for Exemplary Community Achievement. Glenn Uminowicz, who was a Hagley Fellow in the Department of History, now serves as Director of the Andrew County Museum and Historical Society in Savannah, MO. He interviewed for the position a year ago, when the historical society had just opened its new exhibition, A Rural Way of Life. “I’m here because of the Rural Way of Life exhibit. It blew me away,” Uminowicz said. “It is absolutely the best thing I’ve ever seen on rural life, in part because it’s comprehensive.” When he started the job, he nominated A Rural Way of Life for the Governor’s Humanities Award. The exhibit follows two tracks: “On the Farm” and “In the Town,” each showing how life in Andrew County has changed over time from 1841 to the present day. It addresses a range of issues, from Civil War divisions to the impact of agricultural technology and the effect of big box chain stores on downtown merchants. Local residents collaborated with museum professionals to create the exhibit, sharing their stories and artifacts and supporting a major capital campaign. Uminowicz, who grew up in New Jersey and recalls a time when the state’s dairies and cornfields were more prevalent, is a small town booster who has worked in the history of agricultural communities throughout his career.
The museum community itself is a small town. As it turns out, the museum community itself is a small town. Uminowicz’s time in the Museum Studies Program at UD overlapped with that of Henry Sweets, curator at the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum. By coincidence, their organizations were the only two to receive a Missouri Governor’s Humanities Award this year. Sweets grew up in Hannibal, MO and worked for several years as a high school teacher. After
Top: A Rural Way of Life, © Andrew County Museum & Historical Society. Bottom: Mark Twain birthplace, © Jimmy Emerson
receiving a master’s degree in American history from the University of Delaware, Sweets returned to Hannibal to work for the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum, a complex of historic sites where his career has now spanned 33 years. The Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum was awarded for its successful efforts to engage the wider community in Twain’s cultural legacy. For example, teachers visit the museum to learn how they can integrate the life story and work of Mark Twain into their lesson plans. Young authors (grades 5-12) attend week-long workshops at the museum each year, drawing inspiration from Twain’s creative strategies as they work on their own writing. And the museum is celebrating the Year of Mark Twain: the 175th anniversary of his birth, the 100th of his death, and the 125th of the publication of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. “The training that I received at the University of Delaware was key to my being offered the position here in Hannibal,” said Sweets. “It’s led to a long career that’s been very satisfying and rewarding--one that’s touched literally millions of people in the intervening years.” - KATE DUFFY
Museum Studies in Motion - University of Delaware - October 2010
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Internships, continued from pg. 1 We also conducted a brief literature review, talked with professionals, and participated in field trips to better understand the topics of therapeutic gardening, community gardening, and other relevant areas. Next, we facilitated a design charrette, bringing together landscape designers and stakeholders to translate design requirements and ideas into tangible sketches. By the end of September, we had completed a conceptual plan for overall garden layout, developed a list of recommendations for individual garden areas and elements, and compiled a collection of images illustrating specific design ideas. For me, the project served as a valuable opportunity to build project management and teamwork skills while contributing a tangible product to the community. ALANA STAITI (History) When people ask about my summer internship at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, I usually tell them, “I handled a 1970s silicone breast implant – what’s not to like?” Joking aside, the experience was very productive and satisfying. The Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF) is a little-known gem in Philadelphia’s Independence Historic District. The institution seeks to foster an understanding of chemistry’s impact on society and promotes research in and education about the history of chemistry through outreach efforts, exhibitions, fellowships, professional collaborations, and publications. I interned in the CHF’s Special Collections department, which collects and preserves archival documents, photographs, scientific instruments and ephemera, and fine art. The department is also responsible for installing exhibitions in the building’s galleries.
It was interesting to see how Dow’s promotional message morphed over the years.
Chemical Heritage Foundation, © Albert Vecerka/ Esto
try Gentleman. It was really interesting to see how Dow’s promotional message morphed over the years, from one which celebrated “the chemistry of modernity” and its impact on American consumer lifestyles to one which explicitly hyped its stewardship endeavors beginning in the 1970s. This project was just the tip of the iceberg of the entire Dow gift, which includes books, scientists’ papers, tape recordings, ephemera, and scientific equipment. The Special Collections staff at CHF consists of extremely capable, hard-working people who were always willing to answer my questions; I was fortunate to be considered among them this summer. MORE MUSEUM STUDIES INTERNSHIPS Other summer 2010 interns included Jennifer Mathews (History) - Hagley Museum; Allison Olsen (Center for Historic Architecture & Design) Montana Heritage Preservation; Kristen Saska (Plant Science) - Chanticleer Gardens; and Jackie Williams Bruen (History) - Hagley Museum and Winterthur.
Contact Us The Museum Studies Program at the University of Delaware 77 East Main Street | Newark, DE 19711 (302) 831-1251 http://www.udel.edu/museumstudies museumstudies@udel.edu
My specific task involved scanning and cataloging over 800 advertisements from the Dow Historical Collection, part of a large gift to CHF in 2008 from the Dow Chemical Company, a major corporate partner of CHF. Dow Chemical is a multi-national company that makes plastics, household cleaners, herbicides and pesticides, and industrial chemicals, among other things (including, at one point, the Dow-Corning silicone breast implant mentioned above). The ads that I scanned were from the 1920s to 2006 and geared to ordinary consumers. The magazines they came from included Fortune, The Saturday Evening Post, Time, Newsweek, Better Homes & Gardens, Ladies’ Home Journal, and the Coun-
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Museum Studies in Motion - University of Delaware - October 2010
Kasey Grier, Director Tracy Jentzsch, Staff Assistant Kate Duffy, Graduate Assistant Hillary Mohaupt, Supplemental Staff
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