The Tufts Museum Studies Blog is run by second-year masters students. Each year, the graduating editors pass on responsibility of the blog to a new set of editors. So, as graduation season approaches, it is time for Dominique and Andrea to say goodbye, and announce …
In recent months the Worcester Art Museum has mounted labels that re-contextualize the paintings of wealthy Americans from the past. Throughout history, prominent and stately portraits have consisted of subjects who can afford to have such works painted. Oftentimes these paintings depict individuals who owned …
Marieke Van Damme is Executive Director of the Cambridge Historical Society and one of the voices on the podcast Museum People. She also runs Joyful Museums, a website and project committed to “inspiring positive workplace culture.”
As museum workers and students, we all know the positives of working in museums – jobs that we are passionate about, organizations that make a positive difference in the world, always having interesting stories at parties, etc.
But we also know the common downsides of working at many museums – too much work, low salaries, an underfunded organization that leads to fewer resources and low job security, etc…
It is not uncommon for people to leave the museum field because they need better work/life balance, job security, and/or financial security than their museum can provide. For those who stay in the field, these stressors can have a negative impact on workplace culture, personal lives, and employee engagement – impacting productivity and success.
Enter Joyful Museums. This project sets out to explore the state of employee engagement within museums, start conversations on workplace culture, and provide resources and data to help museums improve and utilize their employees’ joy.
In Marieke Van Damme’s words, museums are doing great work for their communities, but,
Still, each year, museums across the globe experience funding cuts. We talk about how this is an issue, but we don’t talk about what it means to be a worker in museums under these circumstances.
What about them? How are we ensuring our museum employees come to work each morning energized, engaged, and ready to take on their ever-growing list of tasks with shrinking funds?
I believe that keeping its workers happy should be the top priority of every museum.
Engaged museum workers will have a deeper commitment to the mission of a museum than a disengaged one, and they will strive for a higher quality product (exhibition, program, publication, etc.) for the public. Building off of the growing academic field of positive psychology, I intend to explore what being happy at work means, why it is important for the museum community, and how it can be accomplished.
How engaged are your employees and coworkers? How engaged are you? Check out Joyful Museums for statistics, conversations, and resources on being a happier worker and building a more engaged workforce. We have a lot to lose by ignoring these conversations, and a lot to gain from having them.
MASHANTUCKET PEQUOT MUSEUM & RESEARCH CENTER AWARD CATEGORIES: $200 for best high school student poster $300 for best undergraduate student poster $400 for best graduate student poster ELIGIBILITY: High school students and currently enrolled full or part-time undergraduate and graduate students REQUIREMENTS: The poster abstract …
Wednesday, April 18, 6:00 pm Unseen Connections A Natural History of Cell Phones Joshua A. Bell, Curator of Globalization, Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution Cell phones are among people’s most prized possessions. They play an important role in daily life, …
This post comes to us from Emma Cook, a student in the History and Museum Studies program. She reflects on her experience in the program’s summer course Revitalizing Historic House Museums. For anyone interested in taking the course, go to http://ase.tufts.edu/summer – registration opens Monday, April 9.
Historic house museums are the largest category of museums in the US. As future museum professionals, we are likely to work with a historic house site sometime in our careers. I found the Revitalizing Historic House Museums course to be an integral component of my graduate education and future career. What makes the course unique is the first-hand experiences provided throughout the class. Case studies, guest speakers, blog posts, and field trips in correlation with our class assignments provided practical skills and knowledge.
What I most enjoyed was visiting historic houses in the area. The first site we visited was the Eustis Estate in Milton, MA. The Eustis Estate was built in 1878 and is the only example of William Ralph Emerson’s significant contribution to American architecture. This historic house was recently opened to the public by Historic New England in May 2017. The Eustis Estate provided a model of new technological approaches being introduced to historic house museums. In-gallery media provided interpretation of the Eustis Estate and a full-scale mobile guide created greater access of the content to visitors. Discussions with staff taught us how the historic house was cared for and updated. The Mementos jewelry exhibition, presented by
Historic New England, demonstrated what new exhibition techniques are used in historic house museums today. I found this experience fascinating, as we were learning first-hand how the Eustis Estate was transformed from a home into a house museum.
The highlight of my course experience was visiting the Kennedy Family Cape House in Hyannis, MA. Our final project of the course was to prepare a report describing the best and highest uses for the property. Kennedy family members gave the home to the Edward M. Kennedy Institute (EMK) to preserve and open to the public. The home itself is nearly completely intact. Photographs of the family line the walls of the home along with artwork by Jackie and Edward “Ted” Kennedy. A table with coffee ring stains in the sunroom marks the place where Ted Kennedy did his work. From JFK’s bedroom (untouched since his death) to the Kennedy grandchildren’s measurements written on the wall in one of the halls, the family
home breathes life and represents a story that wants to be shared. As the only graduate class allowed to visit the site, having the opportunity to not only walk through the Kennedy home, but also create a project that would be viewed and considered by the EMK in their future planning for the site, was a once in a lifetime experience. The responsibility of creating new plans for the house and doing it well, has earned Tufts students the opportunity to continue visiting.
This course was the best part of my summer! What you learn from this class is both inspiring and rewarding. This course prepares you for a role in historic house museums and gives you tools you can apply in many areas of professional practice.
To register go to: http://ase.tufts.edu/summer. You do not need to attend Tufts to register. Those wishing to audit the course are welcome. The first summer session begins on May 24 and ends on June 30. Class is from 6-9:30pm on Mondays and Wednesdays.