Introduction

My name is Samuel Pike I am a 4th Museum Studies major. When I originally came to RIT I was in an entirely different major, New Media and Interactive Development. As I neared the end of my first year at RIT I realized I didn't enjoy the work, the environment, or the idea of easily being able to find a well paying job so I joined the change of majors program. It was there that I actually first heard of Museum Studies, a program I didn't know actually existed here; and the rest is history.

As I went through my years here, my interest and focus in museums varied wildly, from science museums, to museums about the Manifest Destiny movement, and then finally to local and living histories. Starting this summer I had my first taste of what I wanted to do.  After getting put in contact with Brian Nagel at the GCVM I began learning all about historic fermentation and culinary practices.

Above is an image of a document written by George Washington. It was a recipe he created and used to make a batch of 'small' beer (note: Small beer refers to beer that's around 1% alcohol, usually just used to purify water into a drinkable substance). Once I returned from my study abroad program about halfway through the summer I went ahead and recreated this recipe. Although the tools I used were pretty different, I was able to use close to identical ingredients. A few weeks later I was able to drink the same beer that our first President did. From here I began doing more research into historic culinary methods and techniques, slowly focusing in on Rochester and its brewing history, a subject that currently lacks anything more than just bits and pieces of information spread throughout different institutions. 

Kellie, Introduction!

I'm posting this for Kellie, who was having problems accessing the blog:) Dr. Decker

HI!

In the beginning, I was not sure what I want to do concerning a major before I first came here at RIT as a freshmen, but thanks to my travel experiences, I thought Museums Studies was a good choice for me to study, which, in turn, was the wise move as well. Because I truly enjoyed to learn many things in various courses, and although I am still undecided on what kind of career I want for my future, my internship helped me to narrow down to a few potential careers. For those don’t know, I interned under Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project at George Washington University in DC last summer, and I worked on digital transcriptions — I transcribed all of the given documents of Prospects of Mankind into Word on computer — and I enjoyed it. Not only that, but I like to travel around. I want to visit several museums and write blogs about those, but I will work on that later when I am able to travel. :)

So that’s who I am! 

Kellie at the National Mall

Ruth Starr, Introduction

Hello fellow readers! My name is Ruth Starr, I'm a double major at RIT in Museum Studies and ASL-English Interpreting, originally from Chicago, IL. I first became involved with non-profits working at the Evanston Public Library. The library was my first exposure to working in an informal learning environment, and community-based learning. I've always been passionate about books, art, and education, so working in cultural institutions became a natural fit.

My first internship with Museum Studies was at the Memorial Art Gallery here in Rochester, NY. I had an opportunity to work in the Creative Workshop with the Department of Education at the art museum. I learned a lot about art education, and how museums partner with schools to engage their audiences at a young age.

25 Year American's with Disabilities Act Anniversary Festival. Chinatown, NYC. 2015

This summer I had the privilege of interning at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City. I worked, again, in the Department of Education. MoMA has such extensive programming that Education is further subdivided. Within the department, my work was in the Community, Access, School and Teacher Programs divisions. I look forward to continuing my work with art, education, and accessibility with my thesis project this year.

Core Values Poster. Department of Education, The Museum of Modern Art. 

Jean's Intro

Hey, my name is Jean, I'm a 4th year student and also the Peer Mentor for the museum studies major! I work many jobs on campus, and I've had a lot of experience with nearly every gallery/historical like place on campus, or at least know one or two people there! I love dark history, dark tourism, death and history in general. I want to center my thesis around this fascination and the ethics behind it. I also love art, it's a hobby and a passion for myself. What I can't express in words, I can express in art most of the time, and it's something that I hope I never lose.

Introduction

Originally, I was not a Museum Studies major. I came to RIT in 2013 as a sophomore. My freshman year was spent at Ithaca College where I was a film major concentrating in screenwriting with a minor in psychology. My love for film only last a semester and my love for Egypt, archaeology, and anthropology took over leading me into my first Museum Studies class at Ithaca. I loved the course and decided to transfer to RIT. My interests in Egypt and archaeology have been with me since I was a small child, maybe 4 or 5 years old. The program here allowed me to branch out into other areas such as art, exhibition design, and curation just to name a few but never found a passion in any of these areas. I took Tablet to Tablet in Spring 2014 which is taught at the Cary Collection as is about the History of the Book, and finally I found my passion in the field. I am now using the skills I learned in that class and doing my thesis on the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. 

Title Page of Hypnerotomachia Poliphi (1499) from Columbia University

I have some experience with museums. My first internship was at the Rochester Museum and Science Center in the summer of 2015 (so last summer). I worked in the collections department where I was working with metadata and assigning objects accession numbers.

That same summer I interned at the Macedon Public Library (my hometown's local library) in what we call the Bullis Room, which is just a rare book room from the Bullis Family. All the books are have fire and water damage because of the fire that destroyed the original library in 2001. At this internship I had to inventory the books that were in the room and compare it to the list of books that predated the fire. I also had to check to see if the books were on the OWL (Ontario - Wayne Libraries) system. I was also given the chance to curate my own exhibit. In two months I researched and pulled materials for my exhibit, Sherlock Holmes: A Classical Detective for the Modern Age. 

The poster for my Sherlock Holmes Exhibit. 

My last internship was over this summer. I interned at the RIT Archives. My project was to create a Pinterest page for the Archives. I had the input of the summer staff and I created boards from the collections found in the Archives. I am still working on the page as part of my job and I'm training my co-workers on Pinterest so the page will stay active for the time being. Check us out here: https://www.pinterest.com/RITArchives/

Jenna Bossert's Introduction

     Cultural institutions have long been of interest to me, but it was not until halfway through college, I realized that this line of work was my calling. I have visited many museums in my lifetime across the country. However in all that time, I had not thought about how the museum was run or who was in charge of different aspects of the museum.

     When I began college, I was a New Media Interactive Development student. While I still have a love of new media and technology, I realized my passions were more aligned with the following: history, art, fashion, education, information sciences, and other cultural institutions. I joined the Museum Studies major officially in Fall 2014 though I had already taken nearly 1/2 of my course requirements for the program. Interning in the summer of 2014 at the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of Science and Technology (MOST) in Syracuse, NY solidified my decision to switch my major. 

     While I worked at the MOST, I was a Marketing and Public Relations intern and I had a variety of tasks. I am going to focus on my main project throughout my internship. I coordinated event programming for the MOST's July and August Science Socials through organizing volunteers, vendors, and concepts for the event. I led the July Science Social and I worked with the Education department to create scientific demonstrations for attendees at the MOST's Science Social. I worked with the Marketing and PR department to advertise and brand the Science Socials.

The poster for the Science Socials @ the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of Science and Technoly (MOST)

      Another pivotal position that inspired me to change my major is my job as an archival assistant at the RIT Archives. I began in Fall 2014 and fell in love with many aspects that come with the job. Since working there, I have gained a wealth of knowledge about RIT. However my favorite objects that the RIT Archives has are not at all related to RIT or Rochester. These objects would have to be the artist books and the plethora of older issues of magazines such as Seventeen, Harper’s Bazaar, and Vogue. A potential proposal for my senior thesis is researching how 20^th century women’s fashions are depicted in various mediums, such as these magazines, films, books, social media, and of course, the museum. In addition to researching the different depictions, I plan to research the styles of clothing and trends, as well as why they came about and how they are tied to historical happenings of the same time period. An example of this would be the loose flapper dresses that were all the rage in the 1920’s. This freeing fashion came about during a time of revolution for women’s rights. Clothes and trends with fashion may have more of a historical meaning than an aesthetic meaning, or at least more than meets the eye.

Introductions

As a first blog post we have been asked to give introductions and potential thoughts about thesis topics. 

I started in museums during high school through the Capstone program, internships benefiting students who are highly motivated in their career fields, where I spent half of my school day volunteering at the Oliver Archive Center on the grounds of Chautauqua Institution. There I worked with the Thomas Edison and Lewis Miller family photograph collections and managed all incoming inquires for other facets of the photograph collection. My work primarily focused on receiving, analyzing, documenting, digitizing, and caring for the Thomas Edison/Lewis Miller family photographs and its corresponding family genealogy. I then went on to write and submit my first contract to the Chautauqua Institution Board of Trustees, purposing a paid position for the rehousing and digitization of the Chautauqua post card collection. The proposal was accepted and the project was completed before the 2013 Chautauqua season began.

From there I moved to Rochester, NY to start my college education where I immediately began volunteering at the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film. I spent six months volunteering in the Technology collection, labeling and helping to identify cameras. Simultaneously, I also volunteered in the Department of Moving Image during their Monday screenings in the Dryden Theater. These experiences lead me to becoming close friends with Ania Michas, former conservator of the Polish National Archives, and beginning my first contract with the Kay R. Whitmore Conservation Center. The six-month contract was through the Saving America’s Treasures grant for the rehousing of the famous Southworth and Hawes Daguerreotype collection. After completing my portion of the contract, I was asked back by the conservation center, six months later, to complete a second contract in digitization and deterioration identification of the daguerreotypes. I would later go on to be accepted into the museum’s, highly competitive, Department of Photography Undergraduate Internship.

Currently, I have been assigned to work on rehousing, identifying, and cataloging the Colorama collection, also at the George Eastman House, which I may potentially use towards a project-based thesis. However, there is another potential proposal that I may accept and use instead.

I look forward to hearing about what everyone else is considering on over these next two semesters!

Kenzie Mencer in the Kay R. Whitmore Conservation Center after helping to complete the Save America's Treasures Project 

Carly's Introduction

9/2/15

Hi, my name is Carly and I am a 4th year Museum Studies student here at RIT. Over the summer I completed two internships, one at the Wildlife Museum and the other at the Gloversville Public Library. I enjoyed my time at both institutions, and I gained some great experience. At the Wildlife Museum, which is located right in my hometown, I was able to observe how children of different age groups interacted with the exhibits while on their school field trips. I noticed that older children are much more independent and prefer to be their own guides, only asking questions when they want clarification on something.
At the Gloversville Public Library I was able to work on a project that my supervisor had been wanting to start for a while. The project involved organizing a post card collection that had been gifted to the library by a local Historian and Physician after he had passed away. I was also asked to transcribe the messages on the backs of the post cards, and the week before my internship came to an end I had begun to scan the cards onto a computer.
The library also would like for me to come back over the winter break to continue working on the post card project, and I am more than happy to do so.