Fall 2024
Introduction to Museum Studies
Katherine Burton Jones MA, Director, Museum Studies, Harvard Extension School
All museums share responsibility for preserving and interpreting our cultural and natural heritage for the benefit of the public and society. However, museums are more than the collections they house and the exhibits and programs they present. Each museum is a complex network of individuals whose common goal is to create knowledge and to share information and experiences with others. This course provides a broad introduction to the museum world. Students gain an understanding of the museum and the challenges and responsibilities that museums and their staff members encounter. After discussing what a museum is, the various types of museums, and their roles in the community, we introduce current and emerging issues in museums in a number of areas including governance, management of collections, fundraising, and museum jobs and responsibilities.
Fall 2024
Proseminar: Introduction to Graduate Research in Museum Studies
Jeffrey Robert Wilson PhD, Lecturer in Extension, Harvard University
In this proseminar, students develop the skills necessary to engage in graduate-level research in the field of museum studies. Students read classic scholarly texts in museum studies and complete short assignments designed to hone their academic writing skills including critical reading, textual analysis, and argument development. Students also write a 10-page research essay that reflects a particular area of interest within the field of museum studies. Throughout the semester we consider the theory that informs museum practice. In particular, we examine how museums can powerfully mediate encounters with the collective past and reflect the politics of race, class, and gender as well as individual, communal, and national identities. Because skills learned in this course are useful in subsequent courses, it is the first course that prospective Master of Liberal Arts (ALM) candidates should take toward the degree (or the second, if they are completing the expository writing prerequisite). While not designed to be a capstone proposal course, this course does serve as a foundation for eventual work on the capstone.
Prerequisites: A satisfactory score on the mandatory test of critical reading and writing skills or a B or higher grade in the alternate expository writing course, EXPO E-42a. MUSE E-100 is also recommended.
Spring 2025
Proseminar: Introduction to Graduate Research in Museum Studies
Eleanor M. (Sis) Hight PhD, Professor of Art History and Humanities, Emerita, University of New Hampshire
In this proseminar, students develop the skills necessary to engage in graduate-level research in the field of museum studies. Students read classic scholarly texts in museum studies and complete short assignments designed to hone their academic writing skills including critical reading, textual analysis, and argument development. Students also write a 10-page research essay that reflects a particular area of interest within the field of museum studies. Throughout the semester we consider the theory that informs museum practice. In particular, we examine how museums can powerfully mediate encounters with the collective past and reflect the politics of race, class, and gender as well as individual, communal, and national identities. Because skills learned in this course are useful in subsequent courses, it is the first course that prospective Master of Liberal Arts (ALM) candidates should take toward the degree (or the second, if they are completing the expository writing prerequisite). While not designed to be a capstone proposal course, this course does serve as a foundation for eventual work on the capstone.
Prerequisites: A satisfactory score on the mandatory test of critical reading and writing skills or a B or higher grade in the alternate expository writing course, EXPO E-42a. MUSE E-100 is also recommended.
Spring 2025
Proseminar: Introduction to Graduate Research in Museum Studies
Jeffrey Robert Wilson PhD, Lecturer in Extension, Harvard University
In this proseminar, students develop the skills necessary to engage in graduate-level research in the field of museum studies. Students read classic scholarly texts in museum studies and complete short assignments designed to hone their academic writing skills including critical reading, textual analysis, and argument development. Students also write a 10-page research essay that reflects a particular area of interest within the field of museum studies. Throughout the semester we consider the theory that informs museum practice. In particular, we examine how museums can powerfully mediate encounters with the collective past and reflect the politics of race, class, and gender as well as individual, communal, and national identities. Because skills learned in this course are useful in subsequent courses, it is the first course that prospective Master of Liberal Arts (ALM) candidates should take toward the degree (or the second, if they are completing the expository writing prerequisite). While not designed to be a capstone proposal course, this course does serve as a foundation for eventual work on the capstone.
Prerequisites: A satisfactory score on the mandatory test of critical reading and writing skills or a B or higher grade in the alternate expository writing course, EXPO E-42a. MUSE E-100 is also recommended.
Fall 2024
The Twenty-First Century Museum
Laura B. Roberts MBA, Principal, Roberts Consulting
Sustainability requires adaptation to a dynamic environment. We examine museums' fundamental management issues through the lens of change. How can museums become more inclusive institutions? What does it mean to decolonize museum practice? How must our relationships with audiences change to embrace expectations of shared authority and participation? What leadership qualities are needed in the twenty-first century? How has the millennial generation of workers reshaped a profession created by baby boomers? How has the culture of accountability and venture philanthropy changed our case for support?
Prerequisites: MUSE E-100, or the equivalent.
Spring 2025
The Business of Museums
Lawrence Scott Motz MBA, Adjunct Faculty, Sotheby's Institute of Art
Museums, in addition to being repositories for scholarly, educational, and cultural stewardship functions, are businesses, and the astute museum professional benefits from understanding how they operate and how they are structured. This course teaches the basic business of museums, large and small, and provides instruction so that museum professionals can operate in the most efficient manner possible. The course is designed to be enlightening to current or prospective staff in all functional areas within a museum, as every department contributes to operations either directly or indirectly. Though there are discussions that introduce basic financial concepts, this is not a finance course. Rather, this course provides history, theory, and practical management considerations for museums operating in today's environment.
Spring 2025
Museums and the Law
Bonnie R. Clendenning JD, Consultant and Board Chair, Empower Success Corps
Museums, being complex institutions, encompass not only their collections and exhibits but all the people who contribute to their successes, including trustees, employees, volunteers, donors, members and visitors. Museums are often involved in legal matters relating to governance, operations, personnel, intellectual property including digital media, and cultural heritage. They combine scholarly disciplines with intertwined management and organizational challenges. This course provides an overview of the law and its principles as they relate to museums, which should benefit museum professionals even if they do not anticipate being directly involved in legal matters.
Prerequisites: MUSE E-100 is recommended.
Spring 2025
Exhibition Design Through Narrative
Cesar Zapata MPA, Founder and Designer, Zapata Design Studio
Students collaborate in groups through a lecture-workshop format, exploring exhibit design history, theory, and practice in how it relates to visitor experience and engagement, culminating in the development of an exhibition design proposal and 3-D scaled model of a narrative-style exhibition. The course introduces practices from multiples disciplines that allows students to understand their role as exhibit designers working with other sectors of the museum fields including architecture, design, fabrication, and new media.
Prerequisites: MUSE E-100 or the equivalent is recommended.
Fall 2024
Museum Exhibition Content Development
Shelley Monaghan CMS, Consultant
All exhibitions start with a key concept that informs all decisions. This course explores the issues and processes involved in the development of that concept, and the planning of exhibition content in a variety of museum settings. Topics include the development of exhibition themes and educational goals, visitor engagement, intellectual and physical accessibility, universal design, working with designers, and exhibit evaluation methods. The course encourages students to acquire creative communication and problem-solving skills.
Spring 2025
Museum Exhibition Design Fundamentals
Robert Steven Checchi MA, Assistant Director of Exhibitions, Collections Management, Harvard Art Museums
Exhibition design is one of the most multifaceted and creative activities within the museum field. Exhibition design requires the merging of numerous design disciplines in order to create environments that simultaneously protect and display objects, artworks, and artifacts that have an intrinsic artistic, cultural, or historical value, while providing engaging and meaningful experiences for the visitors. This course explores the ways in which the design of an exhibition is conceptualized, developed, and produced from a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach. It provides a detailed look inside the fundamental principles of exhibition design for museums, going through the different layers and roles of planning and designing exhibits from a human-centric approach. Topics include concept design, design development, graphic communication, spatial planning, digital engagement, display fabrication, lighting, and technical specifications.
Prerequisites: MUSE E-110 is recommended, but not required.
Spring 2025
Collections Management: Issues and Solutions
Lily Catherine Sterling ALM, Registrar and Exhibitions Manager, Special Collections, Boston Athenaeum
The course explores the main issues encountered during museum collection management activities. These activities not only affect collections care, but also curation, research, exhibits, and educational projects. Specific challenges and solutions are examined through case studies and analysis of different scenarios. Topics addressed include acquisitions, documentation, digitizing, storage, disaster planning, ethics, and museum-wide strategies for successful collection management.
January 2025
Museum Collections Care
Katherine Burton Jones MA, Director, Museum Studies, Harvard Extension School
This course offers a hands-on training experience in collections care, documentation, and processing at the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, Museum of Comparative Zoology, and Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments. Students work directly with collections management, curatorial, and archives staff members on specific collections-based projects.
Prerequisites: MUSE E-100 or the equivalent is recommended.
Fall 2024
Telling New Stories With Objects
Reed Gochberg PhD, Associate Curator and Manager of Exhibitions, Concord Museum
How can museums tell more inclusive histories through the objects in their collections? In this course, we explore how objects can illuminate the lives of people often left out of the archive or historical record. From clothing and accessories to food and toys, objects and the institutions that collect them provide a material record of how political, economic, and social events shaped the lives of ordinary people. By examining how objects were made, used, and collected, we explore how they open up possibilities for interpreting familiar subjects in new ways and developing exhibitions and programs that are inclusive and accessible to all. This course uses the varied collections across Harvard University to practice methods for analyzing objects, developing strategies for interpretation, and envisioning ways to incorporate them into exhibitions and programs. Prior to our on-campus weekend, we read key works of scholarship on the theories and methods of material culture, the history of museums, and interpretation strategies. Course activities include visits to Harvard's museums and libraries, including the Harvard Art Museums, Harvard Museum of Natural History, and Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Course activities include object-based analysis, gallery tours, small group workshops, and group discussions. The final assignment invites students to propose how they might interpret objects at Harvard and beyond by drawing on the interdisciplinary methods we practice together.
Spring 2025
Museums and Technology
Katherine Burton Jones MA, Director, Museum Studies, Harvard Extension School
The internet has changed the way nonprofits deliver information to constituents and the general public. In this course, we explore the ways in which nonprofits use the web and social media to deliver programmatic content as well as how the web and social media are used in marketing, public relations, and fundraising. We also take a look at the back-of-house systems that these organizations rely on for their information infrastructure, providing an in-depth look at the use of databases and websites to further the organization's mission.
Prerequisites: Some knowledge of computer systems, especially in the nonprofit sector.
Fall 2024
The Future of Historic House Museums
Abby Battis ALM, Associate Director for Collections, Historic Beverly
The changing attitudes in historic interpretation along with challenges facing historic house museums today, such as recovering from a worldwide pandemic, shifting demographics, funding, maintenance, and technology have contributed to declining attendance and waning interest in historic house museums around the world. This course examines the traditional methods for historic house museum sustainability, including collections care and exhibit design, and explores feasible and reinvented methods for reinterpreting the historic house museum in order to maintain its relevance in a changing society.
Prerequisites: Museum experience is a plus.
Fall 2024
Museums as Producers of Meaning
Cynthia A. Fowler PhD, Professor of Art, Emmanuel College
This course examines the various roles played by museums in producing narratives about the objects and creations in their collections. Specifically, we consider factors such as geographical location, museum size, and the mission of the museum in determining what objects end up in museum collections and how those objects are then defined by museum professionals and scholars. Most significantly, the course examines the important role played by local and regional museums in preserving works often not viewed as collectable by large, national museums and how collections in these smaller museums have served revisionist histories of art and culture. Although the course focuses primarily on art museums, it also considers the roles of historic houses, anthropology and cultural museums, libraries, and other collecting institutions in preserving cultural objects. Finally, the course considers alternative ways of considering objects in relation to theories such as the itineraries of objects, challenges to the idea of the masterpiece, and the subject-hood of objects/creations in relation to animacy.
Spring 2025
Introduction to Informal Learning
Christina Smiraglia EdD, Learning Researcher, Project Zero and Adjunct Lecturer, Harvard Graduate School of Education - Lynn Baum MEd, Principal, Turtle Peak Consulting
This course examines selected learning theories that have shaped and are shaping the development of educational offerings like programs and exhibitions in museums and similar informal learning environments. We explore a variety of ways that learning happens in these institutions, focusing on the visitors themselves. Students consider informal learning from the lenses of both educator and learner, experiencing and reflecting on educational approaches firsthand before then analyzing and suggesting improvements to an existing educational offering (virtual or onsite) based on the discussed learning theories and approaches.
Prerequisites: MUSE E-100 or equivalent museum experience recommended.
Fall 2024
Australian First Nations' Art, Culture, and Politics
Brenda L. Croft PhD, Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser Visiting Professor of Australian Studies, Harvard University
Australian First Nations' arts and cultural practices, cosmological beliefs, and politics span more than 60,000 years, with Australian First Nations Peoples standing firm in the belief that they have been on the continent known as Australia since time immemorial. The concept of everywhen, with specific reference to the more widely known, somewhat misleading, term the Dreaming, intersects with Australian First Nations' concept of synchronous temporalities and spatiality. This being the belief that ancestral times, beings, and actions continue in the present and will continue into the future. This course explores the diversity of pre-colonial contact across the many nations whose traditional homelands embody the continent known as Australia, from colonial contact to the present day; from customary to contemporary representation, reclamation, reinvigoration, and reimagination; through diverse media and trans-disciplinary platforms; and informed by socio-political frameworks impacting contemporary Australian First Nations and First Nations futures. The course. has three main aims. First, to provide students with basic geographical, historical, and contextual frameworks for the study of Australian First Nations visual art, culture, and politics in mainland Australia and the islands of Tasmania, Tiwi, and the Torres Strait. Then, to familiarize students with concepts that are fundamental to Australian First Nations understandings of the interconnected relationships between art, culture, and life, both historically (pre- and early post-contact up to the early twentieth century) and in a contemporary (early twentieth to present day) context. Finally, to assist students in developing ideas about how contemporary Australian First Nations visual art, culture, and socio-political actions have contributed to critical methodologies and theory, representation and identity reclamation, reinvigoration and reimagining, and inter-disciplinary, creative-led research. Collections and exhibitions at arts, cultural, social history, and archival institutions are used as part of the teaching and learning experience wherever possible. Cultural institutions and collections at Harvard University are actively engaged with throughout the course, including the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology collection, specifically Australian First Nations cultural material.
Fall 2024
Museum Ethics: Framework and Practice
Kara L. Schneiderman MA, Director of Collections, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University
Now more than ever, museums are in the spotlight and not always for their thought-provoking exhibitions and absorbing educational programs. Scandals involving governance, controversial acquisitions, calls for decolonization, and diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion (DEAI) initiatives gone wrong have put museum ethics under the microscope. Amidst public calls for transparency and accountability, museum ethics are increasingly questioned and debated, leaving many to wonder: what does an ethical museum practice mean in the twenty-first century? This course examines the theory and practice of museum ethics as a framework for understanding the critical role museums play in society today. Modules explore the ethics of governance, fundraising, acquisitions and provenance, deaccessioning, cultural heritage, decolonization, exhibitions, diversity and inclusion, and social justice. Students analyze and evaluate the outcomes of real-world case studies and examine the expanding role of museums as magnets for controversy and catalysts for change.
Prerequisites: MUSE E-100 or the equivalent recommended.
Spring 2025
Audience Engagement Through the Historic House Museum
Michael H. Maler ALM, Founder, Crescendo Productions, LLC - Kenneth Turino MAT, Senior Search Consultant, Museum Search and Reference
Including a visit to two local historic house museums to use as models, this course features a hands-on approach to understanding the methodologies from strategy to practice that house museums and small cultural institutions employ to attract and engage a diverse range of audiences through marketing, interpretation, and programming.
Prerequisites: MUSE E-100.
Spring 2025
Mastering Museum Management
Katherine Burton Jones MA, Director, Museum Studies, Harvard Extension School - Lawrence Scott Motz MBA, Adjunct Faculty, Sotheby's Institute of Art - Laura B. Roberts MBA, Principal, Roberts Consulting
The course is designed to provide a deeper understanding of assorted topics at the intersection of managerial structures, external constituencies, financial sustainability, and operational efficiency. The first module of the course looks at the building blocks of nonprofit organizational development in the context of museums: mission and vision, strategic planning, organizational lifecycle, and governance. The second looks at managing relationships with a museum's various audiences and stakeholders through fundraising and membership programs, community engagement strategies, and various marketing tools. Module three focuses on managing the financial aspects of museums and other institutions operating in the current environment, specifically strategic revenue sources, an in-depth look at endowments, and creating a project plan and projections. The final module provides an opportunity to synthesize the first three by examining the various areas of museum operations and engaging with two scenarios from guest speakers. This module highlights the importance of a cohesive team and a robust communication plan, both internal and external. This course is about the real-world challenges facing museum managers and draws on management theory, case studies, and current thinking about the directions and initiatives museums need to engage in. Guest speakers offer perspectives from a variety of museums and administrative functions.
Prerequisites: While there are no academic prerequisites, it is strongly recommended that the student have taken two or more of the following courses: MUSE E-100, MUSE E-102, MUSE E-105, and MUSE E-185 (offered previously).
Spring 2025
Art Crime: Implications and Investigations
Anthony Amore MPA, Security Director and Chief Investigator, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum - Geoffrey Kelly MA, Federal Law Enforcement Official
Crimes against art are a multi-billion dollar per year illicit activity. They range from thefts from museums and homes to the trafficking of looted antiquities. This course explores the impacts of art crimes and the methods of investigating them through the use of real-world examples.
Fall 2024
Capstone Projects in Museum Studies
Katherine Burton Jones MA, Director, Museum Studies, Harvard Extension School
This course provides students with the opportunity to complete a capstone project related to their professional interests. Capstone projects can include an analysis of a compelling and hotly debated issue within the field of museum studies or, perhaps, creation of a final product that can be used as demonstration of expertise to future or current employers, such as a museum education curriculum, multimedia design, or exhibit.
Prerequisites: Registration is limited to officially admitted capstone track candidates in the Master of Liberal Arts, museum studies. Candidates must be in good academic standing, ready to graduate in February with only the capstone left to complete (no other course registration is allowed simultaneously with the capstone), and have successfully completed the precapstone tutorial, MUSE S-598, in the previous Harvard Summer School term. Candidates who do not meet these degree requirements are dropped from the course.
Fall 2024
Capstone Projects in Museum Studies
Katherine Burton Jones MA, Director, Museum Studies, Harvard Extension School
This course provides students with the opportunity to complete a capstone project related to their professional interests. Capstone projects can include an analysis of a compelling and hotly debated issue within the field of museum studies or, perhaps, creation of a final product that can be used as demonstration of expertise to future or current employers, such as a museum education curriculum, multimedia design, or exhibit.
Prerequisites: Registration is limited to officially admitted capstone track candidates in the Master of Liberal Arts, museum studies. Candidates must be in good academic standing, ready to graduate in February with only the capstone left to complete (no other course registration is allowed simultaneously with the capstone), and have successfully completed the precapstone tutorial, MUSE S-598, in the previous Harvard Summer School term. Candidates who do not meet these degree requirements are dropped from the course.
Spring 2025
Capstone Projects in Museum Studies
Katherine Burton Jones MA, Director, Museum Studies, Harvard Extension School
This course provides students with the opportunity to complete a capstone project related to their professional interests. Capstone projects can include an analysis of a compelling and hotly debated issue within the field of museum studies or, perhaps, creation of a final product that can be used as demonstration of expertise to future or current employers, such as a museum education curriculum, multimedia design, or exhibit.
Prerequisites: Registration is limited to officially admitted capstone track candidates in the Master of Liberal Arts, museum studies. Candidates must be in good academic standing, ready to graduate in May with only the capstone left to complete (no other course registration is allowed simultaneously with the capstone), and have successfully completed the precapstone tutorial, MUSE E-598, in the previous fall term. Candidates who do not meet these degree requirements are dropped from the course.
Spring 2025
Capstone Projects in Museum Studies
Katherine Burton Jones MA, Director, Museum Studies, Harvard Extension School
This course provides students with the opportunity to complete a capstone project related to their professional interests. Capstone projects can include an analysis of a compelling and hotly debated issue within the field of museum studies or, perhaps, creation of a final product that can be used as demonstration of expertise to future or current employers, such as a museum education curriculum, multimedia design, or exhibit.
Prerequisites: Registration is limited to officially admitted capstone track candidates in the Master of Liberal Arts, museum studies. Candidates must be in good academic standing, ready to graduate in May with only the capstone left to complete (no other course registration is allowed simultaneously with the capstone), and have successfully completed the precapstone tutorial, MUSE E-598, in the previous fall term. Candidates who do not meet these degree requirements are dropped from the course.