MA in Museum Education & Visitor-Centered Curation
The MA major in Museum Education and Visitor-Centered Curation conflates museum education and exhibition functions. This major prioritizes addressing the educational needs of museum visitors through programming, interpretation, and exhibitions. This program takes advantage of the expertise and resources available through The Ringling and FSU Museum of Fine Arts to prepare edu-curators, a term coined to express our vision for the future of museum practice.
Program Overview
We prepare edu-curators (a hybrid of education and curation functions) to advance museum theory and practice, and to become innovative and socially-engaged leaders and scholars. Informed by an adapted feminist systems approach, the specialized program in Museum Education & Visitor-Centered Curation aims to develop practitioners who envision exhibitions and interpretative planning as non-hierarchical, collaborative processes.
Structure
- Minimum 39 credit hours. Usually takes 4-5 semesters to complete.
- One course and the internship take place at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, a College of Fine Arts affiliate, located in Sarasota, FL.
- Program benchmarks: Students take 6-hours of an internship and complete a Comprehensive Exam as their culminating project
Objectives
- Professional practices include taking visitor-centered roles in museums and participating in thoughtful scholarship.
- Our students learn how to include underrepresented voices in exhibition and interpretation development and seek social justice through museum practice, evaluation, and organizational change.
- Graduate students will leave with the ability to facilitate and conduct visitor-centered research as well as to plan and evaluate collaborative and reflective museum practices.
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Meet Our Faculty
Our Museum Education program faculty are leaders in the field, having worked with cultural institutions around the world. Their aim is to educate aspiring cultural leaders in how to practice socially responsible arts administration.
