SPECIAL EDITION: THE 2015 ISCHOOL STUDENT CONFERENCE

MUSEUM MONDAYS

BY CADY MOYER

Welcome to another Museum Monday Musings readers! Today is a special edition featuring the iSchool’s student conference, which was Friday and Saturday, March 6th and 7th. A lot went down in two days, and talking about all the great things would mean you would be reading a while, so here is the list of 10 things to know!

1. John Dalrymple from the National Ballet School started things off with a workshop focusing on ways to fundraise for arts organizations.

John Dalrymple and Sloth following John's event. Source: iSchool Student Conference Twitter account.

2. Keynote Speaker Davida Androvitch ignited minds at the conference on Friday evening with an excellent address about public history and her work at Historica Canada with the projects Heritage Minutes and the Canadian Encyclopedia. 

Davida Aronovitch presenting.

Davida and Sloth!

3. Friday night the conference attendees, participants, volunteers, and committee members ate and enjoyed the ambience of the Faculty Club while chatting about the day’s presentations – there were even good natured lively debates about new ideas heard from the day’s presenters!

Part of the spread at the Faculty Club!

4. After breakfast on Saturday morning, conference attendees received some food for thought with keynote address by Andrea Fields from the Bata Shoe Museum who talked about the museum’s volunteer program. 

Andrea Fields addressing audience members about museum volunteers. Source: Madeline Smolarz.

5. The conference mascot, Sloth, continued to work hard on promoting the conference, tweeting all the action from presentations to food.

Sloth in his bow tie, ready for the conference. 

6. Conference attendees were very engaged with presentations, not only during them, but afterwards with conversations happening at breaks, even throughout this past week!

Part of the attentive audience.

7. Museums were a hot topic with almost half the panelists directly discussing cultural heritage institutions and issues. Make sure to check out their interesting work on theft, immigrant representation, value, oral histories, and more in the coming 2015 iSchool Student Conference publication.

The Museums and Value panel pose for  pic with Sloth. 

8. Museum Studies was also well represented on the conference organizing committee, with 3 of 4 co-chairs being MMSt students, and the Faculty Advisor a museum studies professor, Dr. Cara Krmpotich. We may be a small program but we are involved!

2015 Conference Committee: Cara Krmpotich, Catherine Lamoreux,
Alex Somerville, Cady Moyer, and Robin Nelson.

9. Thanks go out to all who got involved by volunteering, attending, helping prepare, presenting, moderating, and opening and closing remarks by Dean Seamus Ross and Dr. Cara Krmpotich. 

10. It all gets to happen next year! The iSchool Student Conference is a free event showcasing ideas and academics from the Faculty of Information. If you are a current, future, or former student with the Faculty you can get involved with the conference, presenting your work or volunteering at the next conference. Current students who will be at the iSchool next year also have the opportunity to organize the 2016 conference! 

To get involved, e-mail ischoolstudentconference@gmail.com or track down any of the people in the above photo and let us know!

Happy Museum Moday all.  :)