IN RESIDENCE at The Ringling

For the second year, The Ringling has students in residence as part of an MA program in Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies, offered in partnership with the Art History Department at Florida State University (FSU). The students spend a full academic year at The Ringling, gaining hands-on experience in a real-world museum environment. They are responsible for completing an internship, seminars, and an independent study project, or capstone, based on a subject derived from their experience at The Ringling.

The internship exposes the students to all aspects of museum operations. The students work directly with staff from different departments, learning what each department does and how it fits into The Ringling as a whole. While this enables the students to develop a broad range of skills, it also helps them to determine which specializations within the museum field best fit their strengths and interests.

To put the internship in context, the students participate in weekly seminars focused on exhibitions and public programs. These seminars enable the students to learn more about museum history, theory, and practice, as well as to discuss museum-related topics with staff and other museum professionals. These discussions are particularly helpful to the students as they prepare for their careers.

Also for the second year, MA and PhD students in FSU’s Museum Education and Visitor-Centered Exhibitions program were in residence at The Ringling for the fall semester. In this program, the students are introduced to the diversity of professional roles and the complexity of operations in a large museum. The centerpiece of their internship is a visitor studies course. Under the academic guidance of Dr. Ann Rowson Love at FSU, students devise and then implement surveys that both meet the institutional needs of The Ringling and provide a “real time” experience of working with museum visitors. This fall’s course focused on the Center for Asian Art in the Dr. Helga Wall-Apelt Gallery of Asian Art. Using a variety of methods, including exit interviews, observation and visitor mapping, electronic surveys, and social media responses, the students gather information that provides The Ringling staff with a better understanding of visitors’ expectations and interests. This information will be used to guide future curatorial, educational, and marketing projects, including in-gallery activities, object labels, and visitor guides. In addition to conducting surveys, the students work with The Ringling’s Education staff on projects that address their areas of personal interest, including public programs, the docent corps, school and teacher programs, and youth and family activities.