For this Winter Quarter 2023 Course Highlight, we were excited to speak with students participating in Jessica Luke‘s new seminar: Museums, Health, and Wellbeing. This seminar explores the role that museums can play in public health, in particular in fostering positive social and emotional well-being. This course is structured as a 5-part seminar, addressing wellbeing theory, practice, research, measures, and contexts. We sat down mid-way through the quarter with Cristal Seda Santiago, Hannah Sutton, and Sarah Smith to discuss their…
Category: Course Highlight
Course highlight: Introduction to Museology
by Purim Junkham (He/him)
Student experience in the Specialization in Museum Evaluation
Since the start of this specialization in 2010, 114 students have completed the Specialization in Evaluation and completed 36 projects. Previous evaluation studies have explored topics such as: family learning, visitor expectations/satisfaction, visitor behavior and experiences, museum resource utilization, and school group engagement. This year’s 2021 cohort has a record high number of students completing the specialization, with 18 students carrying out 5 projects with museums in the Seattle area. To provide some insight into the experiences of our students…
Faculty/Course Spotlight – Geneva Griswold
This blog is part of the Museology Faculty/Course spotlight series, which consists of short interviews with our new faculty to discuss and reflect on inclusive teaching, their learning outcomes, some of their course highlights, and what they learned from their teaching experience. Our next spotlight is with Geneva Griswold, who is a guest lecturer with the program and taught the Sustainability in Museology course. Her responses are below: Where did you draw inspiration or what was your impetus for creating…
Angie Ong Faculty Spotlight
This is the first spotlight of the Museology Faculty spotlight series, which consists of short interviews with our faculty to discuss and reflect on inclusive teaching, their learning outcomes, some of their course highlights, and what they’ve learned adjusting to teaching online through the pandemic. Our first spotlight is with Angie Ong, who teaches the evaluation specialization, museum and technology course, and is one of our four thesis advisors. Her responses are below:
Making Meaning: New Models of Museum Interpretation (Course Highlight)
We at the UW Museology Graduate Program are pleased to include a wide array classes, covering every area of museum practice, in our curriculum. For the last two years, we have been delighted for the chance to offer a course on museum interpretation. What follows is one student’s reflection on how this course has helped her grow as a professional and elevate her thesis project. This winter quarter, I took Making Meaning: New Models of Museum Interpretation, a course taught…
Training Students for the Future of Museums – Community Engagement (Course Highlight)
In Fall Quarter 2019, the University of Washington Museology Graduate Program was pleased to offer our Community Engagement course for the second time, taught by Dr. Meena Selvakumar. Meena has a long history with community engagement. “The very first project that I led and for which I received a federal grant was to develop a community engagement model for our local science museum,” Meena said. “While I have gained expertise in other areas of museum work, community engagement is one…
Mounting “Stories in Every Stitch” at Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park
I have in my wallet a rectangle of wallpaper, perhaps two inches by four inches. Everyone on the team for this year’s Directed Fieldwork in Exhibit Installation course got one, handed to us by our instructor after a weekend of work installing Stories in Every Stitch at the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park. As he divvied up these scraps of wallpaper, he explained their meaning: “I want you to hold onto these, and whenever you think something’s going to…
Power Tools and Powerful Words: A Student Perspective on Exhibition Development
All of the last minute, nervous energy fueled tweaks were completed. The signage was adjusted to perfection, the interactive elements were tested and found to be working seamlessly, and the glass of the display cases was as polished as it ever would be. It was opening night of “If You Have Any Regard for Me Left: Writing Home from the Klondike Gold Rush,” an exhibit that was the result of a long-standing partnership between the UW Museology program and the…
Reflection on the Seminar in Exhibitions Course
–Valerie Roberts, Class of 2019 Exhibits are what first got me excited about working in museums. The animatronic dinosaurs, the dioramas depicting ancient worlds, and the rich history displayed through images and text I experienced as a child that first introduced me to my love of learning and museums. There is something about transforming a space to transport a visitor into a completely different world and to help them learn new and interesting information. This was why I was so…