Explore KU's Museum Studies M.A. Program
The Director of KU's Museum Studies program recently reached out to encourage you to explore going to graduate school at the University of Kansas’ Museum Studies Program. At KU, Museum Studies is a rigorous academic discipline that prepares students to become leaders in a world where natural sciences, visual and performing arts, humanities, and social sciences intersect in the space of the museum. They are developing new approaches to museum practice that consider the how and the why of collection through research, and scholarly and artistic engagement that asks how can they make the museum reflect the lived and imagined experiences of the world around us and the people that inhabit it.
Students in their program gain firsthand knowledge of innovative museum work in KU’s world-class Biodiversity Institute collections, while conducting research that advances the field in exciting and regenerative ways. Museum Studies students are researching a wide range of topics. Recently, their students have presented on topics such as:
• “Anthropologically Introduced Biases in Natural History Collections”
• “A Critical Assessment of Museum Hack and the Value of Renegade-Style Tour Programming”
• “Museums as Distributed, Decentralized, and Transparent: The Possibilities of Crowdsourcing and Blockchain”
• “The Museum’s Guide to Google Arts and Culture”
KU Museum Studies is an affordable program designed to accommodate a wide range of student interests, strengths, and abilities. They work closely with each student to match their curiosity and talents with the needs and aspirations of the museum profession. They are strongly committed to expanding the diversity of the museum profession by creating courses that address important questions such as decolonizing museums spaces and rethinking the ethics of collection and representation.
Their website offers exciting prompts to help students think through limitless possibilities of scholarly and artistic research. Their Museum Studies leadership team is here to help answer any questions you have, too. They invite you to get a feel for their program by contacting their program coordinator, Brandy Ernzen (bernzen@ku.edu), to schedule Zoom meetings with faculty, current students, and local museum professionals.
Applications for Fall 2022 are due February 1.