FIVE JOB TITLES YOU MAY NOT HAVE CONSIDERED WITH YOUR MMSt DEGREE

ALUMNI CHECK-IN

BY: EMILY WELSH

Welcome to this season's final edition of Alumni Check-In! I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight five of our alumni whose job titles represent positions which may be unique or often overlooked by those considering what they may like to do with their own MMSt degrees. Where can our degree take us?


FIVE JOB TITLES YOU MAY NOT HAVE CONSIDERED

1. Registrar and Project Organizer, Archaeological Excavation

Alum: Kapua Iao
MMSt: 2010
Employer: Gournia Excavation Project

Since 2010, Kapua has worked as Registrar and Project Organizer for the Gournia Excavation Project. The Gournia Excavation Project by the University at Buffalo in New York studies the Late Bronze Age Minoan site present at Gournia, Crete. Kapua's responsibilities include organizing the project's personnel, budget and resources; creating collections procedures (accessioning, cataloging, handling); supervising and instructing summer collections volunteers; building and maintaining the databases; and acting as liaison to scholars and the public.

2. Heritage Information Analyst

Alum: Heather Dunn
MMSt: 1995
Employer: Canadian Heritage Information Network

Since 1996, Heather has worked with the Canadian Heritage Information Network under the title of Heritage Information Analyst. In this role, Heather has had the opportunity to work on a variety of interesting projects including working as co-editor on the Nomenclature 4.0 Museum Classification System and leading national working groups assessing, developing and implementing documentation standards for museum collections. Heather's work with metadata, taxonomies and open data projects is contributing to the interchange of museum information. 

3. Development Officer, Annual Giving

Alum: Meaghan Duffy
MMSt: 2009
Employer: Toronto Symphony Orchestra  

Since 2017, Meaghan has been employed in the Development & Donor Relations Department at the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Previously, Meaghan worked as Development and Marketing Administrative Assistant & Direct Response Coordinator at the Canadian Cancer Society.

It is important to remember that with your MMSt degree you are not bound to careers in strictly defined heritage organizations! Your skills are valuable to many organizations and you should follow your heart to where you best fit in!

Remember to think outside of the box and always follow your heart. Source.

4. Service Design Lead

Alum: Stephanie Nemcsok
MMSt: 2008
Employer: Calgary Public Library 

Since 2016, Stephanie has been employed as one of the Calgary Public Library's Service Design Leads. The Calgary Public Library describes their responsibilities as follows:

"Service Design Leads design, develop and evaluate a range of system-wide Library programs and services in the following key areas: civic and digital literacy, early literacy, and services for Indigenous communities, newcomers, children, teens, and readers."

If you would like to learn more about this job's role in the shifting vision of the library, you can check out this expired job posting.

5. President and CEO

Alum: Shelley Falconer 
MMSt: 1994
Employer: Art Gallery of Hamilton 

Shelley has been the President and CEO of the Art Gallery of Hamilton since November 2014. After graduating from the MMSt program in 1994, Shelley's career has moved through a variety of positions including Director of Exhibitions and Programs at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Adjunct Faculty at the University of Toronto, and CEO of Cultural Asset Management Group.

Don't limit yourself in your hopes and dreams for your career after receiving a MMSt degree! If upper management is your dream, or if you have another dream position, aim for it and set yourself up for success. Never stop believing!

"Don't let your dreams be dreams." Source.

 If you are interested in learning more about where the MMSt degree has taken our alumni, check out this interactive map which pinpoints alumni we have discovered around the globe.

The interactive alumni map was created by this column's creator, Kate Seally.

Best of luck with all of your own career aspirations!

ALUMNI IN COLLABORATION: MEREDITH LEONARD & MEGAN WILES

ALUMNI CHECK-IN

BY: EMILY WELSH


This week I check-in with two of our alumni, Meredith Leonard and Megan Wiles, who currently work at Halton Heritage Services in Milton, Ontario. Megan graciously provided this introduction to the institution:

“Heritage Services is a unique organization; we don’t have our own gallery space, visitor services staff or public hours. Instead, we provide exhibition development support for the other cultural and heritage organizations here in Halton Region. This means that my team and I help other museums and organizations create and actualize their own exhibits in their spaces. We do the majority of our fabrication onsite with our own design and graphic production studio, wide format printer, heat assist laminator and workshop.”

Megan and two of her colleagues, fabricating temporary walls that they use in many of their traveling exhibitions. She says there’s a good chance they were blasting Beyoncé when this picture was taken.  Photo courtesy of Megan Wiles.

Meredith Leonard graduated from the MMSt program in 2008 and previously with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from McMaster University. After the MMSt program, she completed a Master of Science degree in Adolescent Education and completed the Getty Leadership Institute NextGen Program at Claremont Graduate University. She is currently employed as Education and Community Coordinator at Heritage Services. Meredith describes her role as follows:

“[to] develop, deliver and evaluate public programming, including exhibits, to advance the Heritage Services vision and mission. My position plays a key role in shaping Heritage Services’ public program offerings and fostering broad public engagement with heritage throughout the Region.”

Meredith is also employed by the Ontario Museum Association as Course Director of Education and Public Programs in the Certificate in Museum Studies Program.

Meredith Leonard, MMSt ‘08 pictured alongside the project team for The Oakville Historical Society exhibition who was one of Heritage Services’ early partner projects. Left to right: Claire Bennett, Meredith Leonard and MMSt intern Julia Zungri. Photo courtesy of Meredith Leonard

Megan Wiles graduated from the MMSt program in 2015 and previously with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from the University of Toronto in 2014. She is currently employed as Curatorial and Public Programs Assistant at Heritage Services. Megan’s job description involves duties with exhibitions, programs and collections including:

• -researching, interpreting, designing, fabricating, installing and striking exhibitions
• -developing, facilitating and delivering programming including professional development workshops and school programs
• -supporting collections management tasks including cataloguing, inventorying and curating  

Megan Wiles, MMSt '15, pictured (left) with colleague Claire (right) installing an exhibition at a local Canadian Legion Branch for the 100th anniversary of Vimy Ridge. Photo courtesy of Megan Wiles.

Meredith and Megan kindly answered the following questions for us here at Musings:

1. What is your favourite memory from your time in the MMSt program?

Meredith: The launch event for our (online) exhibition project – there were so many challenges in making the project happen, it was really rewarding to see everything come together in the end (and the opening party was pretty fun too!).

Megan: It would have to be working on my exhibition project in partnership with the Aga Khan Museum and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture. My group put on a photography exhibition featuring albumen prints from 19th century India at the Ismaili Centre Toronto. I really value the time I got to spend out of the classroom, gaining real world hands-on experience. It was a great feeling to have the support and expertise of working professionals in my field, especially when I was so close to graduating. Sometimes it can be challenging to make those connections but the exhibition project is a great opportunity for getting your name out there and meeting the right people.


2. What course or subject matter has been of most use to you in your current role?

Meredith: I was fortunate to have the opportunity to study under Dr. Cheryl Meszaros in the MMSt Program, and her Contemporary Theories of Art and Culture course provided me with a wonderful grounding in interpretation, which regularly informs my work in creating relevant and meaningful museum experiences for a wide variety of audiences.

Megan: Barbara Soren’s Museums and their Publics course was another one of those opportunities to get out into the field and learn by doing. The fundamental knowledge in this course helped me understand why evaluation is so important in our field, and that evaluation methods and analysis can be incredibly creative and fun. I have been able to leverage the strategies, methodologies and tools to develop my own evaluation workshops and to conduct several studies here at Heritage Services. This is another one of those courses that offers hands-on learning and I recommend it to all current MMSt students I meet.


#3. Do you have advice for museum professionals entering the sector today?

Meredith: Raise your hand – get involved in a variety of initiatives and projects – join a regional museum network, volunteer for a committee, write for a blog, help out at a community festival. These opportunities are great ways to learn and meet new contacts.

Megan: Do stuff with your hands! Gaining a theoretical background in class is a great start, but it isn’t going to be that thing that separates you from others when you’re applying to jobs. Employers are looking for professionals with real world experience. As a recent grad, I know how frustrating it can be to find an entry level job posting that requires experience but no one will give you the chance to get that experience. This is when you have to get creative and look for any and every opportunity to get involved. Say yes and get yourself and your name out there!


#4. Of the projects you have worked on with regional heritage organizations, which object, exhibit or program have you enjoyed the most? Why?

Here, Meredith and Megan fabricate plexi doors for the Partners in Time program.
Photo courtesy of Meredith Leonard.

The finished product! A locker exhibit from the 
2017 Partners in Time project with Acton High School. 
Photo courtesy of Meredith Leonard.

Meredith: As an educator, I really enjoy programs that engage students in “doing history” and empower them to tell their own stories. I’ve been lucky enough to be involved with the Partners in Time program, in which Heritage Services staff work with students to curate an exhibition in their own school. In 2017, we worked with a grade 10 history class to transform student lockers into display cases, in which each student showcased an object that had special meaning for them. Currently, I’m working with a grade 6/7 class to curate an exhibit about the history of their school. These kinds of projects open up museum work to new audiences and provide meaningful, hands-on student learning experiences that are accessible to a wide variety of learners.


Megan: Right now we are working on a project in partnership with the Halton Regional Police Service and the Halton Police Retirees Association. My colleague Claire and I are working with the police to develop an exhibition that will go in the public entry at the new Police Headquarters in Oakville. We are also rehousing, inventorying and cataloguing the HRPS collection at our office. This project is a unique opportunity for us as we don’t often partner with other departments in our organization and we have incredible content to work with. I’m also a bit of a fan girl when it comes to true crime and law enforcement, so this is a really exciting personal project for me.

Thank you to Meredith and Megan for sharing their experiences inside the MMSt program and out! All the best in your future endeavours.