Untitled, by Steve Schreiner, was one of the works featured in “The MUSE Show,” an exhibition curated and hung by high school students enrolled in an introduction to museum studies class at the Newport Art Museum.

Before heading off to university this fall, Diana Boyadjian has a big project to complete. “I’m re-doing my room completely…I feel like a curator!” That’s a shift in self-perception for Diana, who admits she didn’t fully understand the meaning of the word “curator” until she enrolled in MUSE: Introduction to Museum Studies, during her last semester at high school. Now she’s using many of the applied learning skills she honed through MUSE in real-world situations ranging from re-decorating her room to making choices about higher education and a career.

MUSE introduces students to careers in museum management and historic preservation. Coordinated by the Newport Art Museum (NAM) in Newport, Rhode Island, the program is open to juniors and seniors attending the area’s three public high schools. Some enroll in MUSE as an after-school program, but students who attend Portsmouth High School (PHS) can earn a half-credit while benefiting from hands-on experiences led by managerial, curatorial, library, marketing, education and archival staff representing a variety of local cultural organizations.

MUSE combines these weekly site visits with classroom activities such as studio art, rigorous writing and reading assignments and a final exam. The students also curate and mount an art exhibition in one of the museum’s galleries. “It’s definitely not an ‘easy A’,” cautions Diana.

An Evolution in School-to-Career Programs

MUSE represents an evolution in the school-to-career programs that developed across the country in response to the federal School-to-Work Opportunities Act (STWOA) of 1994. The legislation’s original intent was to better prepare young people without job skills for higher paying employment by funding activities such as internships, apprenticeships and mentoring of students by local employers. STWOA expired after five years, but it helped boost understanding of the advantages of work-based learning.

Many advocates argue that all high school students—those planning to enter the workforce after graduation as well as those headed for post-secondary education – benefit from the real-world learning experiences these types of programs offer. In many jurisdictions today, school-to-work (or school-to career) programs are seen as distinct from vocational training, often called career and technical education, which traditionally channels students into specific types of jobs. School-to-career programs like MUSE, on the other hand, focus on career exploration, choice, preparation and workforce readiness for all types of students. But school-to-career and career and technical education can also be viewed as a continuum of opportunities rather than as distinct entities.

MUSE doesn’t rely on traditional sources of education funding. It receives support from the Rhode Island Foundation (RIF), a foundation seeking to connect private philanthropy to the public good. RIF is particularly interested in funding programs that bring organizations together to share resources. The Newport Art Museum is the grantee and coordinates all aspects of MUSE that take place outside of the classroom. Christine Callahan, former executive director of the Newport Art Museum and a key player in getting MUSE off the ground, states that, “With public schools facing challenging budgets and roadblocks to innovative programs for students, MUSE stands out as an exciting public school/ community/arts collaboration project.”

Origins of MUSE —Community Connections

The Newport Art Museum’s programs and services are tied to the interests and needs of community members, but its small size means that forging partnerships and sharing resources with other organizations is essential to fulfilling its mission. Local schools also understand the value of collaboration. Kristin Heynen, Chair of the Fine Arts Department at PHS, says, “One of our goals is to use our community as a resource.”

Two members of the museum’s education committee first floated the idea of a museum studies program in 2000: Roderick O’Hanley, former director of art and music programs for the Middletown, R.I. schools, and Susan Woythaler, the former supervisor of fine arts for the Portsmouth School Department. Woythaler, who now works for the Rhode Island Arts Learning Network, an organization created to help students access arts learning opportunities in the state, says, “We wanted to make links to the community…and we thought a museum studies program like this would be a great way to get kids out of the classroom and into the real world.”

Judy Hambleton, the museum’s director of education, sees the program as addressing a broader need: The three communities on Aquidneck Island—Newport, Middletown and Portsmouth—are experiencing a brain drain as talented young people leave the area to pursue careers elsewhere. “This region is rich with cultural and artistic resources and MUSE is a way to take advantage of those resources…it exposes students to job possibilities they might not have thought of…it may be a way of retaining college-educated residents or encouraging them to live and work here.”

Preparations for MUSE rolled into high gear in 2001 after the museum received a planning grant from the Rhode Island Foundation. The museum was careful to include community educators and school-to-career counselors on the special committee that was formed to put things in motion. A second more comprehensive grant from RIF allowed NAM to hire a coordinator and to offer the Introduction to Museum Studies program for the first time in the fall of 2004 at no cost to schools.

Escape to the Real World

In 2005-2006, two of the area’s three public high schools participated in MUSE at different levels. Students from Rogers High School in Newport, the most urban of the three schools, participated in some aspects of MUSE as an after-school activity. The more suburban Portsmouth High School (PHS), classified by the Rhode Island Department of Education as a high performing school, has fully incorporated the program into its curriculum as a half-credit course.

PHS Principal Robert Littlefield has been an enthusiastic supporter from the start, believing that MUSE would give teachers and students a chance to escape the “artificial confines of the school building.” Littlefield believes that, “kids benefit from context. If it’s made real, if what they’re learning appears tangible, then they’ll be more invested in what they’re learning.”

Senior Nick Comfort says, “The best parts of the course were the hands-on experiences – the weekly visits to museums and preserved buildings. In any class, you can read out of books and learn the same things, but going there and experiencing it was better. It gives you a better understanding.”

Evaluation and Challenges

MUSE Coordinator, Suzanne Hauerstein at work in the Education Office at the Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI.

Newport Art Museum employee Suzanne Hauerstein coordinates the MUSE program and supervises the field trips but teacher Kristin Heynen is responsible for evaluation. Students are graded on their written reflection papers submitted after each site visit, studio art projects, a final exam and their participation levels.

At the end of the semester, students curate an exhibition of art by PHS students and alumni at NAM, a project Boyadjian described as “very cool” and Comfort called “really challenging.” Haurestein explains, “They cover every aspect of preparing and hanging a show. They do the research, find and interview the artists…write an artist’s statement… have them sign a loan agreement contract, organize the exhibition and then they hang it. They even patch and paint the walls …and sometimes…frame pieces for exhibition. They also have to design an invitation and write a press release.” For many, the MUSE exhibition was the most rewarding part of the course.

Reaching Students with Varied Interests and Talents

Most of the students who enrolled in MUSE at Portsmouth High School are college-bound, as are 80 percent of all PHS grads. Beyond that, though, the program appeals to a wide variety of students. “The students who take the class are not just art students,” says Hauerstein. Because the program spans such a wide range of activities from art to history to preparing and hanging an exhibition, Woythaler asserts that “MUSE obviously benefits visual artists but it also gets kids with other interests like history, English or industrial arts, involved in a museum setting.”

“We’re looking for students we can trust,” says Heynen. “They must be responsible. They have to be academically capable of keeping up with the written response component and also artistically able to keep up with the studio art component.”

She says some successful MUSE students were very artistic but weren’t strong writers, so they had to work hard to improve on that front. Others had never taken an art class in high school. “They were academically confident but not artistically confident…MUSE offers an avenue of success for both types of learners.”

Adam Yorks, who will be studying science and art at Evergreen State College in September, says, “I’m interested in art and I love going to museums. I was interested in finding out how they work.” Comfort enjoys making art but doesn’t think he’ll ever be a professional artist. “It was a good alternative – a way to learn about art—to get involved in an art field,” he says. Comfort will be attending the College of Pharmacy at St. John’s University this fall.

Whatever their innate interests and talents, all MUSE students benefit from opportunities the program presents to sharpen a variety of skills and workplace competencies ranging from basic academic skills, creative thinking, decision-making, problem solving, responsibility and self-management, use of resources, planning, working as part of a team, negotiation, communication, and use of technology.

Some have even discovered hidden talents and interests. Although the MUSE students aren’t required to create works for the exhibition themselves, during the last semester some decided to do so and a number of those had never done any artwork before taking the course.

Hambleton hopes that ongoing negotiations with Middletown and Newport schools will result in an expansion of the MUSE program. “We’re all educators and this is a great way to expose kids to art and culture and to job opportunities in fields they might never have thought of before.”

Freelancer Gayle Hargreaves writes about social issues and culture.