Museum Education Specialist opening at Alexandria Archaeology

Alexandria Archaeology

Position Opening: Museum Education Specialist 

Follow the link below to learn more about the position and how to apply!

www.governmentjobs.com/…/museum-education-specialist

Position Overview: The Museum Education Specialist works with archeologists and historians to plan, design, and develop educational and informational materials and to implement programs and events to communicate the archeological and historical significance of our City.  The richness of our program depends upon the Museum Education Specialist’s abilities to interact with the public and increase understanding of the past. Last year, almost 50,000 people visited the City’s Archeology Museum, located in the Torpedo Factory Arts Center, and the museum hosted special events, activities and tours that brought knowledge of history and archeology to participants.  These activities included hands-on Adventure Lessons, dig days where families toured a plantation site and screened for artifacts found by volunteers and interns; tours of the 18th-century ship discovered on the waterfront, teacher training workshops; a summer camp for 12 to 15-year old students; and lectures to both public and professional audiences.  Special events in the museum emphasizing the integration of art and history also drew more than 1000 participants.  The museum educator oversees many of these museum activities and coordinates events, tours, lectures, and school programs for diverse groups of residents and visitors, thus playing a major role in promoting an understanding of Alexandria’s rich diversity, history and culture. In addition the Museum Education Specialist  administers a Volunteer Program where more than 100 volunteers generally contribute more than 8,000 hours of time over the course of a year.  The Museum Education Specialist also helps design and install exhibitions.

Summer Institute Museum Anthropology – Smithsonian

Call for Applications

Smithsonian Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology at the NMAH

Due March 1, 2017

We are now recruiting prospective graduate student participants for the 2017 Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology (SIMA). We hope you will forward this announcement to interested students and colleagues and re-post to relevant lists. SIMA is a graduate student summer training program in museum research methods offered through the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History with major funding from the Cultural Anthropology Program of the National Science Foundation. Summer 2017 dates are June 26-July 21. Student applications are not due until March 1, 2017, but now is the time for students to investigate the program and begin to formulate a research project to propose. Decisions on Faculty Fellows will be made in December.

During four weeks of intensive training in seminars and hands-on workshops in the research collections, students are introduced to the scope of collections and their potential as data. Students become acquainted with strategies for navigating museum systems, learn to select methods to examine and analyze museum specimens, and consider a range of theoretical issues that collections-based research may address. In consultation with faculty, each student carries out preliminary data collection on a topic of their own choice and develops a prospectus for research to be implemented upon return to their home university. Instruction will be provided by Dr. Joshua A. Bell, Dr. Candace Greene and other Smithsonian scholars, plus a series of visiting faculty.

Who should apply?
Graduate students preparing for research careers in cultural anthropology who are interested in using museum collections as a data source. The program is not designed to serve students seeking careers in museum management. Students at both the masters and doctoral level will be considered for acceptance. Students in related interdisciplinary programs (Indigenous Studies, Folklore, etc.) are welcome to apply if the proposed project is anthropological in nature. All U.S. students are eligible for acceptance, even if studying abroad. International students can be considered only if they are enrolled in a university in the U.S. Members of Canadian First Nations are eligible under treaty agreements.

Costs: The program covers students’ tuition and shared housing in local furnished apartments. A stipend will be provided to assist with the cost of food and other local expenses. Participants are individually responsible for the cost of travel to and from Washington, DC.

SIMA dates for 2017: June 26 – July 21

Application deadline – March 1, 2017

SIMA Directors Joshua Bell and Candace Greene will be at the AAA meetings in Minneapolis fromNovember 16-20 and would be glad to discuss and answer any questions about the program. Email SIMA@si.edu if you would like to schedule time to meet.

Want to discuss a project proposal? We’d love to hear from you. Email SIMA@si.edu

For more information and to apply, please visit http://anthropology.si.edu/summerinstitute/

Curating the Curator: Perspectives from Dr. Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman

In our second post in the series “Curating the Curator: Perspectives from MSMC Committee” I introduce Dr. Barnet “Barney” Pavao-Zuckerman.

Barnet

Photo by Jannelle Weakly

Dr. Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman  is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Maryland and is the Interim Director for the MSMC Certificate while Dr. Freidenberg is on sabbatical. She received her PhD from the University of Georgia in 2001, completing her dissertation research in the Georgia Museum of Natural History. Prior to arriving at UMD, she was Associate Curator of Zooarchaeology at the Arizona State Museum for over a decade, as well as Associate Professor and Associate Director of the School of Anthropology at the University of Arizona. She is an archaeologist and currently conducting research on the colonial-period experiences of Native Americans in southeastern and southwestern North America.

Having worked extensively in museums with an archaeology background, I asked her: What was your first experience working in a museum, and what was the most important thing you learned? She responded with several stories that wove together why scholarship is important to her work and the challenges and lessons she learned throughout her career.

these “stories” are the result of years of research

I have spent my entire career in museums—in fact, with my move to the University of Maryland last fall, this is the first time in 20 years that I have not worked primarily in a museum setting. My first museum work experience was in the early 1990s, while I was in high school and college. My summer job was as a tour guide at Mount Lebanon Shaker Village, which is in my home town of New Lebanon, NY. I have wonderful memories of my summers at Mount Lebanon—it is a truly remarkable place. Spend an hour wandering through the Village and you understand immediately why the Shakers chose Mount Lebanon as the place to build their most important community. I was an inexperienced teenager, and our small historical site museum operated on a shoe-string budget, but I learned that as long as I could tell a good story, I could send visitors away happy they had come, and with greater knowledge and appreciation for the place and the people who lived there. I quickly learned that these “stories” are the result of years of research by scholars, both within and outside of museums. I read as much as I could about the Shakers, and apprenticed myself to several of the more experienced tour guides, particularly one who was known for his engaging, and sometimes “salty” (and very un-Shaker), tours.

“you know, sometimes we just burned them down when the rats got too much”.

My graduate research, on the study of animal bones from archaeological sites (zooarchaeology), was carried out in the Georgia Museum of Natural History (GMNH), on the campus of the University of Georgia. I went from a mostly open-air historical site museum to a natural history museum, complete with snakes coiled in jars of alcohol. I learned a great deal during my six years at the GMNH. In a natural history museum, museum scholars from diverse disciplines work side-by-side, and my interactions with curators in the natural sciences had a huge impact on my career, including in promoting the role that zooarchaeological knowledge can play in modern wildlife conservation problems. It was also at the GMNH that I first interacted with a living descendent of an archaeological study community. This experience was just the first of many that serve as a constant reminder to consider and question the impact of archaeological research on descendent communities. As I showed our museum visitor the animal bone remains from his ancestral Muscogee-Creek village, I explained to him we had identified a lot of burned rodent bones inside the village’s homes. I told him I had read that in the 18th century, Creek houses were often burned during funeral rituals for heads of household. He looked at me, smiled, and said “you know, sometimes we just burned them down when the rats got too much”. I also learned that sometimes archaeologists privilege the stories they want to tell over the ones that actually make the most sense!

How to make a bunch of dead animals compete with gorgeous ceramics, baskets, and tapestries?

So, we need to be careful about the stories we tell, but to stay relevant in the 21st century, museums have to tell the important and compelling stories. As I grew into a scholar in my own right, I learned to approach the arcana of my own archaeological research to find the stories that reach broad audiences. From 2002 to 2015, I was a faculty curator at the Arizona State Museum (ASM), on the campus of the University of Arizona (with a joint appointment in the School of Anthropology). Behind-the-scenes tours and public lectures were an important part of my position. Museum tour groups would visit ASM’s world-class southwestern Native pottery collections, its state-of-the-art conservation lab, and the new basketry vault (the second of ASM’s Save America’s Treasures projects), and then walk into the zooarchaeology lab, full of old and broken animal bones. How to make a bunch of dead animals compete with gorgeous ceramics, baskets, and tapestries? The rather un-charismatic nature of old bones meant that I had to engage my audience through story, not stuff. After a couple of tries, I was able to engage our audiences with the story of how tiny fragments of animal bones from Native American sites in Alabama and Arizona tell us something about the origins of trans-oceanic trade and the mercantile economy in North America, as well as the role of Native American labor in the emergence of the global economy. Making these connections from the local to the global is, as I would say in my tours, why I love what I do.

I am also thrilled to be part of an institution with a thriving Museum Certificate program

As many of us know, museums face many challenges in the 21st century. Every museum I have worked in since I was a teenager has faced significant financial stress leading to reorganization, staff cuts, or programmatic shrinkage. Lately, the financial strain has been felt especially at state-funded museums, particularly in states that have chosen to balance budget shortfalls on the backs of educational institutions. While I was a curator at ASM, the 100-year old institution experienced unprecedented and crippling budget cuts. The last two years, in particular, were an extremely challenging time at the Museum, as the institution suffered heart-breaking staff losses due to state budget cuts. I miss the day-to-day life of a museum curator, but I am also thrilled to be part of an institution with a thriving Museum Certificate program in a state that invests in all aspects of higher education. I am realistic in my views on the future of museums and museum scholarship, but am committed to helping the students in our Certificate program gain the skills and knowledge that will allow them to thrive in a 21st century museum world.

~ Barney

Curating the Curators: Perspectives from MSMC Committee

TUNE IN FOR A NEW SERIES!

We’re starting a new blog post series called “Curating the Curators: Perspectives from MSMC Committee” in which  committee members of the certificate program give his/her view on museum scholarship and material culture (MSMC) topics.

We’re excited to feature our committee members’ voices on MSMC issues and read their stories not just as curators but as educators, researchers, and scholars of diverse subjects.  Take a seek peek of what’s to come: Committee Bios.

{Stay tuned for posts from our committee by subscribing to receive posts as they’re published each week (or so). Submit your email on the right side of this page, or “follow” us if you use wordpress.}

WHAT ABOUT THE COMMITTEE?

Beyond keeping the certificate program funded and functional, the Committee are integral to advising students on their practicum projects. Each student works closely with a committee member on the development and execution of their practicum proposals and final products. Committee members provide feedback to students on their proposals and are invaluable resources for navigating scholarship issues and local museum networks.

This series is geared toward emerging professionals and students who will work with the committee in various capacities. However, their thoughts and experiences are careful reflections we hope will reach colleagues in and beyond our network to continue conversations about how we use scholarship in our work everyday.

Join us in the coming weeks as we get to know the MSMC committee members!

Scholarship for Small Museum Association Conference

The annual Small Museum Association (SMA) conference attracts more than 250 museum professionals, board members, and volunteers from a wide variety of small museums. They attend sessions on topics ranging from collections and education to staffing and board issues. We offer a large Museum Resource Hall and plenty of informal networking opportunities for you to talk with (and get ideas from!) other small museum professionals and volunteers.

This year, the conference theme Museums and More will encourage speakers and attendees to explore the ways in which museums are pushing themselves beyond their traditional roles to reach out to and serve their communities. The conference will take place in Ocean City, Maryland on February 14th – Feb 16th 2016.

SMA offers scholarships each year through the generosity of past conference organizers and attendees as well as several partner organizations. All scholarships cover the cost of conference registration as well as hotel stay and most meals. Anyone affiliated with a museum, library, historical society, or related graduate study program (e.g. Museum Studies, Public History, Library and Information Studies, Historic Preservation) is eligible for the SMA Scholarships. This includes full-time or part-time employees, board members, students, interns, and volunteers.

Applications may be submitted by e-mail or mail by November 27, 2015.

For more information go to: http://www.smallmuseum.org/Awards