MMWC Practicum Student Successes: Summer 2017

At the Mathers Museum of World Cultures, we are excited about the work that the museum’s first cohort of Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation interns are doing. You can read about their experiences in this June 2017 news story that Nicole Roales authored:  IU students learn many skills during Mathers Museum internship.

The internship program is new, but as each semester ends, we also experience a pleasure that is longstanding. For decades, the museum has been the home base for practicum students engaging in hands-on learning experiences in museums. Like Director emeritus Geoff Conrad before me, I coordinate practicum courses that provide the framework for student work not only at the MMWC but in other institutions as well. As each semester ends, I get to hear the stories of the work done by these practicum students. For those who have worked at the MMWC I will have seen them at work with their mentors throughout the semester, but for those who go off campus to museums in Chicago, Indianapolis, etc., I get to hear the end of year stories, not only from the students but from their mentors at other museums, large and small. This is an inspiring part of what I get to do.

You can learn more about the practicum courses that I oversee and our museum’s practicum program overall in the practicum guide that we make available on the museum’s webpage. Go here and look for “practicum” to get it. I coordinate graduate and undergraduate museum practicum courses for the IU Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology and the Department of Anthropology. Other practicum courses can be found in History, Information and Library Science, and other units.

Strengthening our Practicum program as well as launching our Internship program are goals articulated in the Museum’s strategic plan. These goals also relate to ambitions articulated in the campus’ strategic plan.