It’s finally summer! The traditional academic year has finished, which means less papers, lots of summer internships, and – most importantly – no more snow!! We’d like to welcome all the new alumni, freshly admitted museum studies students, and the dedicated readers who have been with us here at the Museum Studies Blog all along. If you’ve been reading the blog recently, you know that our long-time contributor and editor, Tegan Kehoe, has graduated and is continuing her museum work at the Paul S. Russell, MD Museum of History and Innovation at MGH. We wish her the best of luck on her journey!
With that in mind, we, your new editors, would like to introduce ourselves and tell you a little bit about our plans for the blog.
About us
Meet Colleen
I am very excited to be in such close proximity to the Washington Monument on my first trip to DC!
Hi, everyone! I’m very excited to be taking the helm of the blog with Jess.
A little about me: I’ve just completed my first year of the Museum Education Master’s program. Originally from the Midwest, I grew up in the Chicago area and graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (what’s up, fellow Badgers?!). I lived in Madison for five years while studying secondary social studies education and trying my hand at teaching in a variety of communities .
Museum-wise, I am really into city museums, especially after working with the Chicago History Museum, as well as accessibility (in regards to both visitors and collections), visitor studies, and community engagement – although what museum educator isn’t into anything that includes the word “engagement?” Although history museums hold a special place in my heart, I am interested in the different ways in which education is viewed in all types of museums. Outside of museums, I am an avid reader, a history nerd, a runner, a baseball fan, and a pub-trivia-night enthusiast, among many other things.
Meet Jess
Happily returning Jumbo’s ashes to the Tisch Sports Center after Jumbo: Marvel, Myth, and Mascot.
Hi! Like Colleen, I’m excited to have inherited this blog from very capable predecessors! I’m really looking forward to continuing their project.
I recently finished my first year of the Art History and Museum Studies MA program. I came to Tufts right after completing my undergrad at Reed College in Portland, OR (good thing I grew up in Connecticut and can handle my snow!). Academically, I tend to focus on trauma theory and memory politics. In the museum world, this translates to working in collections management and the archives. I care about access, conservation/preservation, cataloging, and provenance. Given my background, I usually gravitate towards art and history museums, but am easily won over by the promise of a spectacle. Away from museums, I enjoy riding my bike, reading novels, and listening to NPR.
About our goals
Why are we telling you all of this? We’d like to be as transparent as possible as blog moderators and posters. By sharing our experiences and philosophies, we hope to allow all our readers to know where we are coming from when we write new posts. This way when you read a post, you can decide for yourself if what we’ve said rings true for you. We’re all about critical thinking and examining your sources here at Tufts! You can agree or disagree with us – we’d love to hear your opinions either way.
We have several personal goals for the blog, which we’d like to share with you in the interest of full disclosure. We would love to continue the community centered focus of the blog, and even increase it as a forum for discussion. We believe that the best ideas come from conversation with others, and our readership has such varied backgrounds, interests, and abilities, so we’re betting we will have very interesting discussions. (On a personal level, we also just really love seeing how each person can look at one topic or issue and see it in a completely different light.) Our goal is to provide a space for students and professionals to share their opinions, experiences, and ideas. Please do not hesitate to comment or share your thoughts, as long as we maintain our supportive atmosphere!
Along with discussion on current posts, audience input on future subjects and topics of discussion is an important goal of ours. This blog is intended to help museum studies students and museum professionals to stay connected and share ideas. If you have an idea for a type of post you want to write, a subject you want to read about more often, or even a blog or article you think we should check out, we would love to include your voice! You can check out the “About the Blog” section or just email us at tufts.museum.blog[at]gmail.com.
Survey
Finally, we would like to let you know that soon we will be emailing out a link through Angela Foss to a survey that we have created. The purpose is to help us evaluate the blog and to continue to serve our readership in the most effective way possible. We want to make sure that we are writing about the types of posts you are interested in, and on the subjects that you want to hear about. Please take a few moments to complete the survey when you get it – it will only serve to make the blog stronger!
Looking forward to exploring and discussing with all of you!
Colleen & Jess
