Director of the Wellin Museum of Art Tracy Adler and Katherine Alcauskas, the Wellin’s collections curator and exhibitions manager, recently participated in a conference on “Teaching & Learning with Museum Exhibitions—Innovations across the Disciplines.” The two-day event, sponsored by The Teagle Foundation, took place at Skidmore College’s Tang Museum and focused on exhibition-based pedagogy.
The conference resulted from a three-year collaboration between faculty and museum staff at Hamilton, Skidmore, Colgate University, and the University at Albany (SUNY). With funding from a Teagle Foundation grant, the four colleges worked together to explore ways for museums and galleries to be active transformers of higher education by functioning as spaces for creative, rigorous, interdisciplinary inquiry.
At the conference, Alcauskas was a member of a panel titled “Reflections on the Teagle Project.” Made up of representatives from each of the four colleges, the panel discussed the inter-institutional collaboration’s achievements and challenges.
Adler, along with museum directors from the other colleges, comprised a panel on “Exhibitions as Multidisciplinary Learning Spaces.” Their discussion focused on the vital role that campus museums can play in supporting educational goals across the disciplines.
In addition to the panels, the conference included several presentations and roundtables that included discussions on writing at the museum, curating for interdisciplinary teaching and learning, STEM in the museum, and other topics.
Michelle Reynolds, the Wellin’s curatorial and programming coordinator, also participated in the conference as a facilitator.