Museum Studies Bachelor of science degree
Museum Studies
Bachelor of science degree
e74a147c-1b38-4f51-b999-0da3c2d0414c | 129295
Overview
Aid museums, archives, libraries, and other cultural institutions in implementing technology to manage, curate, digitize, conserve, and exhibit their collections, and make them available in interactive, engaging ways.
Museums, archives, libraries, and other cultural institutions are rapidly changing. These historical sites are seeking professionals who can help adopt and implement technological innovations to help manage, curate, conserve, and exhibit, and digitize their cultural or scientific collections, in order to make them available to the public in interactive and engaging ways. The museum studies program provides a thorough grounding in the history, theory, and practice of institutional collecting, exhibition development, and design, collection management, fundraising and grant writing, and implementing today’s technologies. You’ll be prepared to help an institution enhance assess, improve engagement, and better share their collections with the world.
Museum studies is an innovative, interdisciplinary, technically-based major that prepares students for careers in museums, archives, photo collections, and libraries. The major includes a set of introductory and advanced core courses to familiarize students with the fundamentals of museum studies, including the history, theory, and practice of institutional collecting, conservation, and the technical investigation of art. To broaden and deepen their knowledge, students choose a professional track in management or public history.
Professional tracks
The professional tracks–in museums, libraries, and archives and in public history–include course work that meets the criteria established by professionals in the field and reflects current opinion about necessary skill sets. Since 2000, the International Council of Museums (ICOM) and the Committee on Museum Professional Training (COMPT) have called for revisions in the training of museum professionals that reflect evolving needs for information technology, fundraising and grant writing skills, collections management, and interpretive and exhibition skills, all of which are included in the museums, libraries, and archives track. The public history track offers students core courses in learning how to think historically, making sound historical arguments, and presenting history effectively to a public audience.
Internship
The major requires students to complete a 200-hour internship in a cultural institution. This experience gives students the opportunity to apply what they've learned in the classroom to a professional setting and gain valuable work experience before they graduate.
Career opportunities
Upon graduation students are well prepared to work in institutions that collect cultural objects, such as museums, historical sites, historical societies, libraries, archives, and corporations. Students are also prepared to further their education in graduate programs in museum studies, art history, informatics, arts management, library and information studies, or business.
Industries
Latest News
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August 5, 2019
!['Knit piece featuring woman wearing blue dress suit in front of American flag with words "Run for prez"']()
The fiber of democracy
Rochester Beacon features Hinda Mandell, associate professor of communications, and Juilee Decker associate professor of museum studies.
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July 17, 2019
!['Knit rug with the word "RESIST" in the center.']()
RIT professors organize yarn installation in Rochester Aug. 21
Grab your needles, yarn or thread, and get crafting for democracy in a community-wide tribute to Rochester’s legacy of social activism with a contemporary twist. Fiber artists are needed to contribute to a yarn installation celebrating the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Sewing Society at a historic site on Corinthian Street.
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July 15, 2019
!['Logo reads: Crafting Democracy: Fiber Arts and Activisim']()
Craft activism in the Trump Era on exhibit in ‘Crafting Democracy’
Handcrafted pussyhats, subversive embroidery (“resist”), protest banners and quilts are among the politically charged textiles inspired by the rise of President Donald Trump, and they are the focus of a new exhibit and catalog curated by two RIT professors.
Curriculum
Museum Studies (Museums, Libraries and Archives track), BS degree, typical course sequence
| Course | Sem. Cr. Hrs. | |
|---|---|---|
| First Year | ||
| ARTH-135 |
History of Western Art: Ancient to Medieval
The subject of this course is the history of western art and architecture from Prehistory through the Middle Ages. We will examine the form, style, function, and meaning of important objects and monuments of the past, and consider these in their social, historical and cultural contexts.
A chronological study will allow us to recognize when, where and by whom a given object was produced. Once these decisive factors are established, we may try to determine why the object was made, what it meant in its time, place and culture, and whose ideology it served. Since we are dealing with visual information, the primary goals of this class are to learn how to look, and how to describe and analyze what we see.
At the end of the term, students will be prepared to pursue additional courses in the discipline, for they will have gained a foundational knowledge of the object, scope and methods of art history. The knowledge obtained in this introductory course will also guide students in their own creative endeavors.
|
3 |
| ARTH-136 |
History of Western Art: Renaissance to Modern
The subject of this course is the history of western art and architecture from the Renaissance through the early 20th century. We will examine the form, style, function, and meaning of important objects and monuments of the past, and consider these in their social, historical and cultural contexts.
A chronological study will allow us to recognize when, where and by whom a given object was produced. Once these decisive factors are established, we may try to determine why the object was made, what it meant in its time, place and culture, and whose ideology it served. Since we are dealing with visual information, the primary goals of this class are to learn how to look, and how to describe and analyze what we see.
At the end of the term, students will be prepared to pursue additional courses in the discipline, for they will have gained a foundational knowledge of the object, scope and methods of art history. The knowledge obtained in this introductory course will also guide students in their own creative endeavors.
|
3 |
| MUSE-220 |
Introduction to Museums & Collecting
This course examines the history, theory, ideology, and practice of collecting within the institutional context of the museum. It considers the formation of the modern museum, and focusing on the American context, investigates the function and varieties of museums, ranging from natural history, anthropology, science and technology, history, and art. The course explores the history of the museum and its evolution institutionally, ideologically, and experientially. The course also considers the operations of museums from accessioning through deaccessioning, examining museum management, collections management and collections care. The course also explores museum governance and the professional ethics and legal constraints that affect museum professionals. The course examines how a museum carries out its mission of public education through its collections and exhibitions, as well as through its educational programs and community outreach and visitor studies. Current issues in the museum world are also considered, including: the museum's educational function versus its entertainment function; the problems of staying solvent in an era of diminishing governmental and corporate subsidies; deaccessioning collections to support the museum operations; issues of art theft and repatriation (ranging from colonial era and Nazi era plunder, the disposition of human remains and sacred objects, and illicit trafficking); the evolving responsibilities of the museum to its public and the cultural heritage; and the rise of the virtual museum. Throughout the semester, the course examines museums and their practices through the perspectives of colonialism, nationalism, class, race, age, gender, and ethnicity. The course includes field trips to local museums and collections throughout the semester.
|
3 |
| MUSE-221 |
Introduction to Public History
Public history is using the research-based methods and techniques of historians to conduct historical work in the public sphere. If you've gone to a museum, conducted an oral history, researched your old house, or learned from an interpreter at a park or historic site, you've seen public history in action. This course will introduce students to the wide variety of careers in public history, and will examine the challenges and opportunities that come with doing history in, with, and for the public.
|
3 |
| YOPS-10 | RIT 365: RIT Connections |
0 |
LAS Perspective 1 (ethical) |
3 | |
LAS Perspective 2 (artistic) |
3 | |
LAS Perspective 3 (global) |
3 | |
LAS Perspective 4 (social) |
3 | |
LAS Perspective 7A (mathematical) |
3 | |
First Year Writing (WI) |
3 | |
Wellness Education* |
0 | |
| Second Year | ||
| MUSE-224 |
History & Theory of Exhibitions
Art exhibitions are organized around a curatorial premise, a statement that articulates an idea allowing for the selection of work included in an exhibition. This course begins with an overview of exhibition history, starting with the transformation of the Louvre into the first public art museum following the French Revolution, where art history, a discipline developed in the 19th century, was enlisted to organize exhibition. The course then examines the proliferation of types of exhibitions that accompanies modernism, up to the present, paying close attention to the curatorial premise animating the exhibitions.
|
3 |
| MUSE-225 |
Museum & the Digital Age
The digital revolution has profoundly influenced how we think about the world around us. Information once available only to experts is now accessible digitally to a much broader audience. Museums, archives, and libraries have adapted to this democratization of knowledge and decentralization of access in myriad ways. As visitors to museums—whether online or onsite—each of us is part of the creation, consumption, and reception of digital information. What does this mean for museums and for us as audiences and consumers of such information? How has the combination of digital technology and social media increased visitors’ abilities for interaction with cultural institutions, their collections, and other visitors? This course will examine the history and evolution of museum practices as they adapt to new technologies and rethink traditional museum practices. The course has no pre-requisite and is open to students of all majors.
|
3 |
| MUSE-341 |
Museum Education & Interpretation
This course introduces students to the educational mission of the museum and to the museum’s role in educating citizens for participation in a democratic, pluralistic society. As sites of informal learning, museums have an educational impact on our lives beyond our formal schooling. The course focuses on a wide range of educational activities within museums that address visitors of all ages as individuals and as members of a democratic society, and helps to foster in them a sense of community, civic responsibility, tolerance for multiple viewpoints, and lifelong love of learning. The course examines the institutional shift from a fixed, scholarly approach to exhibiting collections to one that embraces the concept of interpretation, where visitors are encouraged to engage in a variety of experiences, make their own connections with objects and other visitors, and ultimately construct their own meanings.
|
3 |
| MUSE-358 |
Legal and Ethical Issues for Collecting Institutions
This course presents an overview of the legal and ethical issues that govern the institutions and personnel involved in collecting cultural resources. Collecting institutions are governed by national, state, and local laws that define how facilities and collections are used and this course will consider them, as well as the larger social and historical context out of which they developed. The course will consider the evolution of the museum as a public institution and how the legal system increasingly defined minimum standards for maintaining collections, the facilities in which they are housed, and guaranteeing public access; in addition legal standards for the collection will be studied, including definitions of ownership, what this means in terms of intellectual property rights, copyright, reproduction (traditional and electronic), and deaccessioning/disposal. These will be studied within the context of the society within which the institution functions. The course will also study the development of national and international ethical standards and will examine the codes of behavior that govern the personal and professional conduct of museum professionals and the practices that comprise conflicts of interest. Ethical standards for collecting institutions will also be considered, particularly those that address the responsibilities to a collection, the ethics of acquisition, the question of illicit or stolen material, the issues of human remains and objects of sacred significance, and repatriation. Attention will be paid to the changes in society that made these issues critical for collecting institutions.
|
3 |
LAS Immersion 1 |
3 | |
LAS Perspective 5‡ (natural science inquiry) |
4 | |
LAS Perspective 6 (scientific principles) |
3 | |
LAS Perspective 7B (mathematical) |
3 | |
Free Electives |
6 | |
| Third Year | ||
| MUSE-340 |
Introduction to Archival Studies
This course introduces students to the role of archives in the construction of a society’s cultural heritage and historical identity. Archives are repositories of a culture’s original documents, both paper and electronic, and they function as a site for the construction, preservation, and dissemination of historical memory, as a source for social responsibility, and as a tool for the understanding of the cultural, social, and political forces that influence events. The course will examine the history of archives, the theory and practice that guide the work of archivists, and examine the basic components of an archival program: including acquisition and appraisal, arrangement and description, preservation and legal and ethical issues related to access to archival records. The class will also cover the transformation of the profession in the digital age, including digital preservation, the work of archival appraisal and collection building in an age of digital proliferation, and archival collection management systems.
|
3 |
| MUSE354 |
Exhibition Design
This course examines the history and practice of exhibition design. It reviews the history of exhibitions within the development of museum-like institutions. In this course the following aspects of exhibition design are considered: curatorial premise or theme, exhibition development timeline, exhibition site, contracts and contractual obligations, budgets and fundraising, publicity material, didactic material, and exhibition design. The course includes field trips to local institutions and collections throughout the quarter.
|
3 |
| MUSE-355 |
Fundraising, Grant Writing, & Marketing for Nonprofit Institutions
This course examines the growing autonomy of collecting institutions as they are cut off from various forms of governmental sponsorship and public subsidy and their subsequent needs for raising money from outside, non-traditional sources. The course looks at issues of needs assessment, budgeting, and strategic planning. It focuses on the design and implementation of effective fundraising campaigns, as well as on the organization and writing of successful grant proposals. It also considers the importance of marketing to overall institutional success.
|
3 |
| MUSE-357 |
Collections Management & Museum Administration
This course presents an overview of the administration and management of museums and their collections. The course examines the governance structure of museums, focusing on personnel responsible for their administration, curation and education, and operations, as well as on the mission statement and policies they determine. The course also details the management of collections, including the development of a collections policy, management of that policy, documentation and record keeping, acquisitions, and the creation/management of exhibitions. Finally, the course considers collections care or preventive conservation, looking at both the facility and collections. Throughout the quarter, legal and ethical issues pertaining to museums and their collections will be emphasized.
|
3 |
| MUSE-359 |
Cultural Informatics
This course introduces students to Cultural Informatics, the interdisciplinary field that examines the intersections of information technologies, information science, and cultural information centered in museums, libraries, and archives. Among the topics to be examined are: how information technologies are used in museums, libraries, and archives; how modern information systems have shaped the museum environment; the nature of convergence; the development of digital collections, digital curation, and online exhibitions; and the role and status of the information professional in the museum and cultural organizations. The course is designed around projects, case studies, and readings so that students gain hands-on experience working with information. The course has no prerequisite and is open to students of all majors.
|
3 |
| MUSE360 |
Visitor Engagement & Museum Technologies
All of us, as museum visitors, have the capacity to engage with collections and to create meanings as a result of such interaction. This course considers the history and theory of visitor engagement at museums, galleries, and sites of cultural heritage tourism; examines the import of technology into this history; and articulates the role of visitors as participants who curate their own experiences. Two key questions will be addressed in this course: 1) How does technology provide a platform for contribution, collaboration, co-creation, and co-opting of experiences among all visitors? and 2) Can technology mediate the best possible experience for visitors? The course has no prerequisite and is open to students of all majors.
|
3 |
LAS Immersion 2, 3 |
6 | |
LAS Elective |
3 | |
Free Elective |
3 | |
| Fourth Year | ||
| MUSE-489 |
Research Methods
This class introduces students to the methods of research appropriate for scholarship in the field of Museum Studies. Students will learn how to locate, analyze, assess, critique and conduct research in the field. They will choose the topic of their senior thesis project, develop a clear statement of how that topic will be explored, and construct an annotated bibliography relevant to that topic. This course leads to the development of a proposal for a senior thesis project that is suitable for full implementation in Senior Thesis for museum studies.
|
3 |
| MUSE-490 |
Senior Thesis in Museum Studies
The Senior Thesis in Museum Studies is the final requirement in the degree program. Students will conduct the appropriate research to address the topic they had proposed in Research Methods. They will present their results as a formal written thesis and in an appropriate public forum. The course provides students the opportunity to develop their research and practical skills and to share the results with the department and the college.
|
3 |
Free Electives |
6 | |
MUSE Electives |
6 | |
LAS Electives |
12 | |
| Total Semester Credit Hours | 121 |
|
Please see General Education Curriculum–Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) for more information.
(WI) Refers to a writing intensive course within the major.
* Please see Wellness Education Requirement for more information. Students completing bachelor's degrees are required to complete two different Wellness courses.
‡ Students will satisfy this requirement by taking either a 3- or 4-credit hour lab science course. If a science course consists of separate lecture and laboratory sections, the student must take both the lecture and lab portions to satisfy the requirement.
Museum Studies (Public History track), BS degree, typical course sequence
| Course | Sem. Cr. Hrs. | |
|---|---|---|
| First Year | ||
| HIST-101 |
Making History
How do historians understand and interpret the past? What tools do historians use to uncover the past? What does it mean to think historically? History is both an art and a science, and in this course, we will learn the methods, practices, and tools used to create historical knowledge. You will learn how to read texts with an eye toward their argument, how to ask historical questions, how to conduct historical research, and how to write a historical narrative. At the discretion of the instructor, the class may use examples from a particular historical era to ground course concepts in a specific historical tradition.
|
3 |
| MUSE-220 |
Introduction to Museums & Collecting
This course examines the history, theory, ideology, and practice of collecting within the institutional context of the museum. It considers the formation of the modern museum, and focusing on the American context, investigates the function and varieties of museums, ranging from natural history, anthropology, science and technology, history, and art. The course explores the history of the museum and its evolution institutionally, ideologically, and experientially. The course also considers the operations of museums from accessioning through deaccessioning, examining museum management, collections management and collections care. The course also explores museum governance and the professional ethics and legal constraints that affect museum professionals. The course examines how a museum carries out its mission of public education through its collections and exhibitions, as well as through its educational programs and community outreach and visitor studies. Current issues in the museum world are also considered, including: the museum's educational function versus its entertainment function; the problems of staying solvent in an era of diminishing governmental and corporate subsidies; deaccessioning collections to support the museum operations; issues of art theft and repatriation (ranging from colonial era and Nazi era plunder, the disposition of human remains and sacred objects, and illicit trafficking); the evolving responsibilities of the museum to its public and the cultural heritage; and the rise of the virtual museum. Throughout the semester, the course examines museums and their practices through the perspectives of colonialism, nationalism, class, race, age, gender, and ethnicity. The course includes field trips to local museums and collections throughout the semester.
|
3 |
| MUSE-221 |
Introduction to Public History
Public history is using the research-based methods and techniques of historians to conduct historical work in the public sphere. If you've gone to a museum, conducted an oral history, researched your old house, or learned from an interpreter at a park or historic site, you've seen public history in action. This course will introduce students to the wide variety of careers in public history, and will examine the challenges and opportunities that come with doing history in, with, and for the public.
|
3 |
| YOPS-10 | RIT 365: RIT Connections |
0 |
LAS Perspective 1 (ethical) |
3 | |
LAS Perspective 2 (artistic) |
3 | |
LAS Perspective 3 (global) |
3 | |
LAS Perspective 4 (social) |
3 | |
LAS Perspective 5 (natural science inquiry) |
4 | |
LAS Perspective 7A (mathematical) |
3 | |
First Year Writing (WI) |
3 | |
Wellness Education* |
0 | |
| Second Year | ||
| HIST-125 |
Public History and Public Debate
In late 1994, the B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, the airplane that dropped the first atomic bomb detonated in combat on Hiroshima, Japan, arrived at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. The museum’s staff faced important questions: Would they celebrate the Enola Gay as the weapon that ended the Pacific War? Would they exhibit it as a technological artifact that marked the dawn of nuclear warfare? Would they remind museum visitors that its potent cargo ended the lives of tens of thousands of people? These were difficult professional questions for public historians; they were deeply ethical questions too.
Much of the past that public historians interpret is the source of great debate in the present. Since the way history is remembered shapes public policy, community identity, and collective understanding, the ethical stakes for public history are high. This course will examine notable controversies in American public history and develop students’ critical perspectives on them. Students will generate answers to the questions: What are the ethics of doing public history? What happens when public historians remember, but the community wants to forget? When stakeholders (e.g., historic site, community, historians, sponsors) collide, whose stories and whose interests prevail? Who decides? How are those decisions made? Who is allowed to tell history? To whom or to what are public historians responsible?
|
3 |
| HIST-324 |
Oral History
Oral history collects memories and personal commentaries of historical significance through recorded interviews. There are few opportunities for historical research that are more satisfying or more challenging than oral history. In this class, we will learn about oral history methods, techniques, and ethics. We will read, listen to, and watch some of the finest examples of the genre. Then we will go out and add to the world's understanding of its past by conducting oral histories of our own. For their final project in this course, students will work in teams to produce a podcast based on their own interview(s).
|
3 |
| MUSE-224 |
History & Theory of Exhibitions
Art exhibitions are organized around a curatorial premise, a statement that articulates an idea allowing for the selection of work included in an exhibition. This course begins with an overview of exhibition history, starting with the transformation of the Louvre into the first public art museum following the French Revolution, where art history, a discipline developed in the 19th century, was enlisted to organize exhibition. The course then examines the proliferation of types of exhibitions that accompanies modernism, up to the present, paying close attention to the curatorial premise animating the exhibitions.
|
3 |
| MUSE-225 |
Museums & the Digital Age
The digital revolution has profoundly influenced how we think about the world around us. Information once available only to experts is now accessible digitally to a much broader audience. Museums, archives, and libraries have adapted to this democratization of knowledge and decentralization of access in myriad ways. As visitors to museums—whether online or onsite—each of us is part of the creation, consumption, and reception of digital information. What does this mean for museums and for us as audiences and consumers of such information? How has the combination of digital technology and social media increased visitors’ abilities for interaction with cultural institutions, their collections, and other visitors? This course will examine the history and evolution of museum practices as they adapt to new technologies and rethink traditional museum practices. The course has no pre-requisite and is open to students of all majors.
|
3 |
| MUSE-341 |
Museum Education & Interpretation
This course introduces students to the educational mission of the museum and to the museum’s role in educating citizens for participation in a democratic, pluralistic society. As sites of informal learning, museums have an educational impact on our lives beyond our formal schooling. The course focuses on a wide range of educational activities within museums that address visitors of all ages as individuals and as members of a democratic society, and helps to foster in them a sense of community, civic responsibility, tolerance for multiple viewpoints, and lifelong love of learning. The course examines the institutional shift from a fixed, scholarly approach to exhibiting collections to one that embraces the concept of interpretation, where visitors are encouraged to engage in a variety of experiences, make their own connections with objects and other visitors, and ultimately construct their own meanings.
|
3 |
| MUSE-358 |
Legal and Ethical Issues for Collecting Institutions
This course presents an overview of the legal and ethical issues that govern the institutions and personnel involved in collecting cultural resources. Collecting institutions are governed by national, state, and local laws that define how facilities and collections are used and this course will consider them, as well as the larger social and historical context out of which they developed. The course will consider the evolution of the museum as a public institution and how the legal system increasingly defined minimum standards for maintaining collections, the facilities in which they are housed, and guaranteeing public access; in addition legal standards for the collection will be studied, including definitions of ownership, what this means in terms of intellectual property rights, copyright, reproduction (traditional and electronic), and deaccessioning/disposal. These will be studied within the context of the society within which the institution functions. The course will also study the development of national and international ethical standards and will examine the codes of behavior that govern the personal and professional conduct of museum professionals and the practices that comprise conflicts of interest. Ethical standards for collecting institutions will also be considered, particularly those that address the responsibilities to a collection, the ethics of acquisition, the question of illicit or stolen material, the issues of human remains and objects of sacred significance, and repatriation. Attention will be paid to the changes in society that made these issues critical for collecting institutions.
|
3 |
LAS Perspective 6 (scientific principles) |
3 | |
LAS Perspective 7B (mathematical) |
3 | |
LAS Immersion 1, 2 |
6 | |
| Third Year | ||
| HIST-325 |
Museums and History
Many more people learn history from museums than from textbooks. What is it that is so special about encountering the real thing in a museum? Why are Dorothy's Ruby Slippers the most visited artifact in the National Museum of American History? Do history museums themselves have an important history? Join us as we investigate the connections between our history, our museums, and the material artifacts that tell historical stories.
|
3 |
| MUSE-354 |
Exhibition Design
This course examines the history and practice of exhibition design. It reviews the history of exhibitions within the development of museum-like institutions. In this course the following aspects of exhibition design are considered: curatorial premise or theme, exhibition development timeline, exhibition site, contracts and contractual obligations, budgets and fundraising, publicity material, didactic material, and exhibition design. The course includes field trips to local institutions and collections throughout the quarter.
|
3 |
| MUSE-355 |
Fundraising, Grant Writing, & Marketing for Nonprofit Institutions
This course examines the growing autonomy of collecting institutions as they are cut off from various forms of governmental sponsorship and public subsidy and their subsequent needs for raising money from outside, non-traditional sources. The course looks at issues of needs assessment, budgeting, and strategic planning. It focuses on the design and implementation of effective fundraising campaigns, as well as on the organization and writing of successful grant proposals. It also considers the importance of marketing to overall institutional success.
|
3 |
| MUSE-357 |
Collections Management & Museum Administration
This course presents an overview of the administration and management of museums and their collections. The course examines the governance structure of museums, focusing on personnel responsible for their administration, curation and education, and operations, as well as on the mission statement and policies they determine. The course also details the management of collections, including the development of a collections policy, management of that policy, documentation and record keeping, acquisitions, and the creation/management of exhibitions. Finally, the course considers collections care or preventive conservation, looking at both the facility and collections. Throughout the quarter, legal and ethical issues pertaining to museums and their collections will be emphasized.
|
3 |
| MUSE-359 |
Cultural Informatics
This course introduces students to Cultural Informatics, the interdisciplinary field that examines the intersections of information technologies, information science, and cultural information centered in museums, libraries, and archives. Among the topics to be examined are: how information technologies are used in museums, libraries, and archives; how modern information systems have shaped the museum environment; the nature of convergence; the development of digital collections, digital curation, and online exhibitions; and the role and status of the information professional in the museum and cultural organizations. The course is designed around projects, case studies, and readings so that students gain hands-on experience working with information. The course has no prerequisite and is open to students of all majors.
|
3 |
| MUSE-360 |
Visitor Engagement & Museum Technologies
All of us, as museum visitors, have the capacity to engage with collections and to create meanings as a result of such interaction. This course considers the history and theory of visitor engagement at museums, galleries, and sites of cultural heritage tourism; examines the import of technology into this history; and articulates the role of visitors as participants who curate their own experiences. Two key questions will be addressed in this course: 1) How does technology provide a platform for contribution, collaboration, co-creation, and co-opting of experiences among all visitors? and 2) Can technology mediate the best possible experience for visitors? The course has no prerequisite and is open to students of all majors.
|
3 |
Public History Elective |
3 | |
LAS Immersion 3 |
3 | |
LAS Electives |
6 | |
| Fourth Year | ||
| MUSE-489 |
Research Methods
This class introduces students to the methods of research appropriate for scholarship in the field of Museum Studies. Students will learn how to locate, analyze, assess, critique and conduct research in the field. They will choose the topic of their senior thesis project, develop a clear statement of how that topic will be explored, and construct an annotated bibliography relevant to that topic. This course leads to the development of a proposal for a senior thesis project that is suitable for full implementation in Senior Thesis for museum studies.
|
3 |
| MUSE-490 |
Senior Thesis in Museum Studies
The Senior Thesis in Museum Studies is the final requirement in the degree program. Students will conduct the appropriate research to address the topic they had proposed in Research Methods. They will present their results as a formal written thesis and in an appropriate public forum. The course provides students the opportunity to develop their research and practical skills and to share the results with the department and the college.
|
3 |
LAS Electives |
9 | |
Free Electives |
15 | |
| Total Semester Credit Hours | 121 |
|
Please see General Education Curriculum–Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) for more information.
(WI) Refers to a writing intensive course within the major.
* Please see Wellness Education Requirement for more information. Students completing bachelor's degrees are required to complete two different Wellness courses.
‡ Students will satisfy this requirement by taking either a 3- or 4-credit hour lab science course. If a science course consists of separate lecture and laboratory sections, the student must take both the lecture and lab portions to satisfy the requirement.
Admission Requirements
Freshman Admission
For all bachelor’s degree programs, a strong performance in a college preparatory program is expected. Generally, this includes 4 years of English, 3-4 years of mathematics, 2-3 years of science, and 3 years of social studies and/or history.
Specific math and science requirements and other recommendations
- Strong performance in English and social studies is expected
Transfer Admission
Transfer course recommendations without associate degree
Courses in liberal arts, art history, studio arts, photography, business, and chemistry
Appropriate associate degree programs for transfer
Fine arts, Liberal arts, or business/marketing
Learn about admissions and financial aid
Additional Info
Advising
Every student is assigned a faculty advisor who provides academic advising and career counseling. All of the faculty members in museum studies hold the highest degrees in their field and all have been published within their areas of expertise. For more information, please refer to the college's academic advising page.