Notes on Museum Studies Discussion
Posted in Individualism, Internationalism, Politics, Presentism on 13. Aug, 2009
So much has turned up in the discussion about Museum Studies course. I’m glad how the discussion has turned to what the course should do rather than what they can do. There’s too much flying around to keep track of it all so this is going to be in note form.
- This discussion has thrown up a lot of associated sub-issues. I said Museum Studies courses should be doing everything in their power to get their students into proper work. This has started conversations about opportunity, wages, volunteering and the reasons for doing the course in the first place.
- I’m going to come out with my opinion on the whole “education as its own reward” ideology that isn’t intended to provoke any further discussion. I simply cannot understand why anyone would want to believe this. It seems to be such a lovely way of dismissing greater values of a qualification, and smacks slightly of an education culture that wants you to be a customer for the designated time only. My reasons are because education is so damn expensive. All the scholarships and bursaries won’t make up the fact someone is going to shoulder a huge amount of debt. Is that it’s own reward? No, I believe ruining your credit rating is an investment/risk based upon your future earnings. Who would want to invest £50,000 just to earn £15,000 for the rest of their lives?
- If that still is your reasoning, then all the more power to you.
- Remember, all this is about improving the Museum Studies course to improve the outcomes for the graduates.
- Something I believe in: Graduates are intelligent and mostly resourceful. Give enough time, a graduate will learn what you need them to do. Also, all graduates have their own ideas.
- I need to think about the idea of a Museum Studies course (or any similar course, thinking about it) acting as a recruitment department for museums. How would that work? A course would act as the interview process. Then many (all?) museums would be attached to it as a “sponsor”. Years of training *for* someone. Of course, this may be limiting: there are many very interesting people in museums who didn’t take this route. We can’t close them out.
- Let’s look at volunteers:
- I believe their to be two kinds of volunteer. 1) Those doing it primarily as a kind of hobby/social occasion 2) Those doing it as advancing their professional status/CV building. Of course you can do both.
- Mia: And FWIW, TV, film and fashion also rely on volunteers or unpaid interns – working for a year unpaid to get your foot in the door is more common than not. (Yes, and look at the major problems with those industries because they’re not dealing with this. TV and film are getting kicked around because they wish to hold onto a status quo, which is often why they blame piracy for everything. I won’t comment on how the fashion industry works since I know so little about it. I guess it’s because there’s a lot of money and very few people. I think sports teams are similar except they spend fortunes on developing youth teams)
- From my analysis, people have a problem with the route of Degree>Volunteering>Entry-Level position. It relies too heavily on the middle part for an unequal benefit to the end outcome when the beginning.
- A person does a Museum Studies course. Personal Benefit, Professional Benefit, Massive Costs.
- A person does volunteering. Some Personal Benefit (if you enjoy it), Professional Benefit (if it’s worthwhile), Massive Costs (travel costs etc. and the fact that you’re not earning).
- A person gets an entry level position. Maybe Personal Benefit, Professional Status, Small Reductions towards Debt.
- This person’s route has very large costs compared to a standard professional status.
- And what about Museums and this route? Massive benefits from Course (creates enormous potential workforce to pick and choose from), Massive Benefits from volunteering (Free work force that’s quite skilled), Only Costs from recruitment.
- Well, that’s one way to look at it. And now tell me there’s not a sense of Doom? If there’s a history of personal failures to get into the museum industry, then talented people will write it off. Then where will the Future come from?
- Hence why I think reliance on volunteers is unsustainable. imagine the big numbers here.
- DICLAIMER, NOT SERIOUS: If we lost all the current museum chiefs, what would happen? They’d be replaced? By the second-in-commands? Now what would happen if we lost all the volunteers? Who’s the most important? Is that sustainable?
- The Real Problem: Degree>Volunteering>Entry-Level seems to be the *only* route into museums. We need more Routes. Ideas? I’m thinking Degree>Museum Start-Up.
- Paul Orselli great post “Smaller-is-better” (maybe combined with my Metrocurator thoughts) is a very powerful idea in light of these discussions.
- Another great post from Colleen Dilenschneider. Yeah, maybe this is consider a “miracle course”, but it’s something to aspire to, right?
- One of my favourite outcomes of all this is Museos Unite. They’re doing a much better job at collecting and advancing all this discussion than me. I promised them a proper set of thoughts about Unionising. I’ll hopefully get those thoughts down tonight.
Is anyone else rather excited about all this?
Great post. I agree 100% that volunteers are more irreplaceable than Directors/CEOs, and that museums benefit more from the status quo than museum workers. Still, it almost sets up a false dichotomy between “museums” and “museum workers,” when in fact the two are usually the same thing. When we talk about “museums” as anthropomorphized entities we’re not usually discussing the MA or AAM or ICOM definitions of the word; we’re talking about the people who work in a museum. So yes, the bottom line of museums’ ledgers are more satisfied with the status quo than they would be by a new way of doing museum studies/transitioning into the workplace, but I think that the *people* who work in museums—even the higher level people—are likely to be amenable to changes… if they are well thought out and properly implemented. I think the people most likely to oppose changes to museum studies are the museum studies programs. They’re actually the ones milking the cash cow.
Re: “The Real Problem: Degree>Volunteering>Entry-Level seems to be the *only* route into museums. We need more Routes. Ideas? I’m thinking Degree>Museum Start-Up.”
I’d love to hear more about what you mean by Museum Start-Up. It sounds like a tantalizing concept.
I think there are alternative routes in, but it is quite discipline dependent. Rather than focusing on routes in at the outset, perhaps it would be useful to look at what museums require and what they have available.
First of all, how many openings are there, how many people in the discipline and how many people wanting to break into the sector? There seem to be far more people attempting to work in museums than there are jobs available (in my experience there are about 100-150 applicants for an entry-level position).
At present, many applicants hold a Masters in Museum Studies, which amounts to little – they lack any experience of practical museum work. Theory and academic concepts of best practice are drummed into graduates, but this prescriptive teaching methodology seems to be more structured towards providing the Universities with a cheap to run but highly lucrative course than to providing the graduates with a realistic taste of museum experience.
Feedback I have heard from museum professionals who have undertaken some of the Masters courses after they have been in the sector for a few years has invariably been negative and in many instances they have been shocked at the nonsense that they have been told.
Apprenticeships or sponsored secondments would provide a more useful entry point for museum hopefuls than the cynical fees-driven Masters system that is currently en vogue, but of course this would require funding. At the moment the museum sector is losing out on people who can offer valuable skills, because selection of those who enter the sector is dependent on determination, personal wealth, or willingness to make sacrifices – rather than pure ability.
That being said, there are so many people coming through the system it seems likely that those with ability may eventually make it through to a paid position after all, since few will get jobs without spending time as a volunteer anyway – it is that time volunteering that generally provides institutions with an indicator of ability. In short, it’s not a case of Masters or volunteering, in many instances it’s Masters and volunteering.
One more thing about volunteering: If museums expect their employees to volunteer for an extended period of time to “get their foot in the door,” this has a detrimental effect on the diversity of the workforce. So, even removing museum studies grads from the equation (often dismissed as entitled, thanks to their upper middle class upbringing) museums are still left with a staff that doesn’t reflect their surrounding community, unless their surrounding community happens to be especially privileged. The fact of the matter is that most people can’t afford to work in museums… regardless of which route they take to get there.
This is pretty interesting, and at the very least, has brought out a whole host of new people (to me) into the discussion.
Last night I found myself wondering about the decision makers – right now, not in 5 or 10 years – and who they are. Who can actually effect future outcomes. (I mean, it is fine for us all to have this conversation but if it doesn’t make an impact beyond blog walls…it is just a good discussion. If a tree falls in the forest and all that.) What do you think? I have my own version of an answer, but would be interested what you think. That’s a broad question, I know. It may even be getting back to the “whose to blame” cycle, which isn’t what I mean.
@Kirsten
I don’t think there’s any animosity towards museum-as-entities. Hell, otherwise why are all these people trying to work for them. There is something wrong with Museum Studies courses (in that there’s always more they could do to be awesome yet maybe strive too much for mediocre). I don’t believe I set up any false dictonomy. This is why I call it the Museum Industry, as its a culture-wide issue, not an institutional one. This needs to be a solution/paradigm shift that’s across the whole. True, it could be museum workers in appropriate positions aren’t doing enough/too lazy/other priorities, but this isn’t something to put onto individuals.
We are dealing with hammers here, not scalpels.
I only have half an idea to what a museum start-up is, and it may be something I want to take further at some point.
The other detrimental effect is that it pisses people off. Volunteering, as to develop a career, needs to progress when it’s too often a cul-de-sac. But your 100% right on it creating a skewed workforce.
@PaoloV
“Rather than focusing on routes in at the outset, perhaps it would be useful to look at what museums require and what they have available.”
Yeah, alright, that’s very wise. I’ll keep that in mind when I think of some more.
Heh, nonsense like what? That would make a great book. “The Book of Museum Lies”.
The more I hearaabout funding, the more I want to say “The rest of the world doesn’t need funding!”, but that’s a post for another time.
Master and Volunteer, a film with Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany.
Okay, we have a Kirsten and a Kristen. This isn’t going to get complicated at all…
@Koko (much easier)
The decision makers would be dependent on what scale (and what country). If you wanted to change cultural employment standards, then the government could do that. In the UK, probably either Department of Culture, Media and Sport or Work and Pension or maybe even Business, Innovation and Skills, or all three. Maybe even local authorities (still a UK exmaple) could be partners to establish a change. Individual museums would need to convince whoever/whatever the head manager and possibly the cheif governence/trustees.
Of course, this “political” method would need a particular edge, probably that of “providing opportunity to young people as part of economic development”, despite the age of museum graduates. That’s politics.
Otherwise, you’re dealing with the politics of the membership organisations to spark a change. But this normally comes after too much debate and too many compremises to be effectual.
There’s something that’s puzzling, and that’s the idea of their not being enough jobs. So we need to create more jobs. But there’s no funding. So where was the funding for all these massive extensions? Why was there an increase in buildings?
So we either need more museums or need more things for museums to do. Or, we need to do something about this model of fund-and-spend. But I’m not an much of an economist.