BYU NewsNet - BYU prepares students to become future museum professionals

Two BYU students preparing for careers in managing museum collections presented research at the forefront of museum studies at this year’s annual American Association of Museums.

Paul Stavast, museum director of the Museum of Peoples and Cultures accompanied BYU students Heidi Kartchner and Tammy Messick to the conference in Philadelphia, Pa. This conference hosted more than 5,000 attendees.

Kartchner and Messick began their research as undergraduate students, but were granted the opportunity to present their posters at this year’s conference.

The conference was open to all members of the American Association of Museums. The chosen presenters were selected from those who applied with their presentation ideas, Kartchner said.

“Presenting at AAM is a big deal,” Messick said. “There are museum ‘celebrities’ in the field that I really admire who attend AAM every year. It was a little nerve-wracking thinking that the very people I cited in my poster were actually attending AAM.”

Students studying in fields such as anthropology and geology can get a museum practices graduate certificate in conjunction with their master’s degree.

This allows students to be more employable, Stavast said.

This program gears students to manage museum collections by taking care of the day-to-day responsibilities and hands-on assembly of the exhibits.

Most people believe these responsibilities fall under the curator’s job, but the curator does the research and brings the collection in on an academic level.

Stavast and Cynthia Finlayson, of the Department of Anthropology, were the educators who worked with the students, mentoring them to become future museum professionals and helping them achieve their certification.

Prior to presenting her research on visitor studies at AAM, Messick received a scholarship to attend the Visitor Studies Association conference in Houston, Texas as an undergraduate which propelled her into the world of evaluating visitor studies.

“The evaluation was something that I just had to pursue,” Messick said. “So, I traveled around the world for a while … and started contacting professionals that I had met at VSA earlier that summer. Within a few months, I had been offered to work on a contract basis for two museum consulting firms and got an internship at the Smithsonian.”

Kartchner said she presented original research she conducted last summer at the Museum of Peoples and Cultures, looking into habits of people who support the museum, including visitors, donors, volunteers, employees and researchers. The results of this research provided the museum with valuable information concerning its visitors, she said.

“Our presence at the conference got BYU’s name into the museum field,” Kartchner said. “Specifically, our presentations illustrated that current and relevant research was being conducted at the Museum of Peoples and Cultures.”