Museums and Cultural Management

Our newest nycTREC, the Semester on Museums and Cultural Management, is offered every spring semester in odd-numbered years. Classes begin in mid-January, end in early May and are held on campus on Wednesdays and in New York City on Fridays.

Applications are due October 10.

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Travel

Venture into New York City, a museum and cultural capital that attracts thinkers, artists, ethnographers and historians from around the world. Inside the city’s vast array of historic sites, art institutions and cultural centers, consider how museums both reflect and define who we are. Examine critical theoretical issues: the politics of display, public reception and conflicting perspectives of multiple audiences. Travel every week to various New York metropolitan museums like the American Museum of Natural History, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, El Museo Del Barrio, Guggenheim Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Chinese in America, Museum of Modern Art, and more.

Rethink

The role of museums in our constantly changing society. Why were museums created? What function were they intended to serve and how has their role changed over time? As vital sites for the expression of individual, group, and national identities, what effect do museums have on contemporary society?

Explore

In regular conversations with industry professionals, examine the ways museums contribute to current conversations of race, gender, and diversity. Behind the exhibits and public displays, discover how museums are funded and managed. Develop criteria for evaluating museum exhibitions and other visitor displays. Round out the semester with a hands-on experience during a practicum at Drew's own United Methodist Archives and History Center.

More about Drew's Methodist Archives.

Connect

Careers in museums and cultural management draw students from disciplines such as Anthropology, Art, Art History, Business, Communications and Media, History, Philosophy and Sociology. Completing this Launch-guided immersive experience will expose professional pathways that extend far beyond curating exhibits. The ability to connect the mission and values of museums to their exhibitions, programming and architecture is relevant to careers in fields such as curation, conservation, collections management, communications or education.

Required Course

ANTH 375/ARTH 375

Museum Studies and Cultural Management Practicum

Students are strongly encouraged to take Intro to Museum Studies (ANTH 210/ARTH 210) before the nycTREC Semester on Museums and Cultural Management.

Learn more about ANTH 375/ARTH 375

Museum Studies and Cultural Management Practicum

8 Credits

This course explores the intersection of the museum and its public with a focus on the rise of the museum in the late eighteenth century and its development up to the present day. Such questions as: Why were museums created, and what purposes do these institutions serve? What values do they project? are addressed through selected case studies and readings of key theoretical texts in the field. Includes analysis of current museum and gallery exhibitions and discusses such issues as the role of government, the interdependence of museums and the art market, and debates over repatriation, restitution and looting or theft.

CLA-Breadth/Interdisciplinary, CLA-Off Campus Experience

Students are strongly encouraged to take Intro to Museum Studies (ANTH 210/ARTH 210) before the nycTREC Semester on Museums and Cultural Management.