Minor shows importance of museums to society

With 40 minors to choose from, Hopkins students have a lot of decisions to make if they choose to add an additional course of study to their transcript. With everything from Financial Economics to Jewish Studies, minors provide students with a way to complement their major or pursue an unrelated interest.

For students in the Museums & Society minor, another benefit of adding a minor is the sense of togetherness that the program provides.

"M&S is an undiscovered gem," senior Lydia Alcock wrote in an e-mail to The News-Letter. "The program feels like a tight-knit community."

Led by director Dr. Elizabeth Rodini, the minor is "concerned with the institutions that shape knowledge and understanding through the collection, preservation, interpretation and/or presentation of objects, artifacts, materials, monuments, and historic sites," according to the program website.

But the minor is not intended to prepare students for museum-work.

"When the program was first conceived in 2006, the Program's Faculty Advisory Committee deliberately chose the name ‘Museums and Society' to make clear that M&S was committed to studying the museum in its socio-cultural and historical contexts rather than intended to offer pre-professional training in museum work," Dr. Jennifer Kinglsey, academic program coordinator, wrote in an email to The News-Letter.

The minor requires six courses, including the Introduction to the Museum sequence, which is offered annually.  Because the program is interdisciplinary, many M&S courses are cross-listed with other departments, such as History of Art, Anthropology and Classics to name a few.

This fall, students were given the opportunity to take classes like Critical Issues in Art Conservation, Western Collecting and The Victorians and Japanese Print Culture. Beyond the introduction sequence and electives, minors are also required to take three credits of practicum work, which can include internships, independent studies or classes that involve hands-on work.

The practicum work is a defining feature of this program. Students often take internships at the neighboring Baltimore Museum of Art or the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.  On November 2, the program is having a resume workshop where students can speak to representatives from the Maryland Science Center, the Maryland Zoo, the Walters Art Museum and Jewish Museum of Maryland.

Several minors have also curated their own shows at Evergreen Museum and Library, including junior Laura Somenzi, whose show Zelda Fitzgerald: Choreography in Color  opens October 18. Later this fall, Emily Carambelas, Class of 2011, is to curate an installation of Judaica at Hillel.

"Others have interned at other types of museums such as botanical gardens, and in a variety of departments such as in museum libraries, education, development, membership, from California to Maine," Kinglsey wrote. "You name it, they've done it."

Every spring, the Homewood Museum is home to a student-curated focus show. Last spring's show was titled, "Privileged Pursuits: Cultural Refinement in Early Baltimore."  The show explored "how young Baltimoreans were instructed in cultural activities including music, dance, literature, fine art and civility in the early 19th century," according to the Museum's website.

Through shows and exhibits like this one, students in the program get hands-on experience in the field.

M&S minors are in a variety of majors, including Anthropology, History, History of Art and International Studies.

In addition, the majors of Biophysics, Behavioral Biology, Psychology, Political Science, Classics and French each have at least one student represented.

"The Program has graduated 30 minors representing 15 different majors, counting all declared minors, the count goes up to 20 different majors," Kingsley wrote.

For Alcock, who is a psychology major, the interesting classes drew her to the minor early on.

"I took my first M&S classes spring semester freshman year, simply because I couldn't get into the other courses I wanted," she wrote. "I'm a pretty creative and artsy person, but also motivated to achieve academically. I fell in love with M&S classes because they offer a creative outlet and cover cultural topics while reaining a strong theoretical foundation that is rich in research and scholarship. Also, they are just plain fun."

Alcock was the Nan Pinkard-Aurelia Bolton Intern for summer 2010 at the Homewood Museum, where she helped Homewood's Director and Curator, Catherine Rogers Arthur, to manage the collections database and prepare for an upcoming fall exhibition.

This past summer, Alock interned for the Smithsonian Associates in the Education Outreach department.

"I am currently interning at the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies, working on heritage month programs, Smithsonian Teachers' Night, and other projects," she wrote.

The variety of classes and internship potential also drew junior Helen Schnell to the program.  She is a double History and History of Art major.

"The practicum classes are amazing," Schnell said. "I took the class ‘Introduction to Museum Practice' with Sanchita Balachandran, and it was awesome to have hands-on work and learning in the JHU Archaeological collection. We got to study objects, research them, and make boxes and labels for their display."

While the program encourages internships and hands-on experience, Kingsley stresses that the program is not pre-professional.

The program's goal is to foster critical and analytical thinking that would be beneficial in any industry or career.

"M&S asks students to pay attention to the places where our society publicly encounters and debates the content, problems and questions that are also at the heart of academic disciplines in the university," she wrote. "I would say that no matter the major, whether it's the History of Art (which was what I studied as an undergrad), Medicine or Business, the goal of a Hopkins education is to build fundamental skills in reasoning, analysis, research and communication. These are the building blocks for performing well in every field and every job. With such an education you do more than learn to apply the best approach to solving a problem or performing a task, you learn to invent it."

But, for those students who do want to pursue a career in museums, the program offers a myriad of connections and resources in the field. According to Kingsley, the industry is very much alive despite facing economic challenges like many cultural institutions.

"What I tell students about jobs is to be open to all the opportunities that may come their way and to keep their search broad," she wrote.  

"As the experiences of our recent graduates show, there are many ways of being involved with museums and related cultural non-profits. Some of our alums are studying law with the goal of specializing in the arts; others are working in museums in development, where there is currently great demand. There is no single formula for success."