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Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar (Prof. Scott and Prof. Houghteling)

Course Description:

This course provides students a forum in which to ground, frame and discuss their hands-on work in museums, galleries, archives or collections. Whether students have arranged an internship at a local institution or in the Bryn Mawr College Collections, this course provides a framework for these endeavors, coupling praxis with theory supported by readings from the discipline of Museum Studies.

The learning goals for the course are:

To connect Museum Studies theory and practice
To connect internships in museum, archives or galleries to students’ individual interests and career goals
To gain knowledge about some of the fundamentals of Museum Studies—including the history of museums, the role of museum in society, current trends in museums, museum ethics and about the variety of museum professions

Telling Bryn Mawr Histories (Prof. Gallup-Diaz)

Instructor: Prof. Ignacio Gallup-Diaz

TA and Praxis Student Coordinator: Emma Burns, BMC ’21

Course Description and Reflection by Prof. Gallup-Diaz:

The members of the Spring 2021 offering of H268 gathered at a particularly disorienting moment in time — a history class, filled with participants experiencing a jarring historical moment.

Why jarring?

The members of the seminar met at the confluence of the ongoing pandemic (a global event), the Black Lives Matter movement (as a US process with global ramifications), the MeToo movement (a global process), and the Bryn Mawr Student Strike (a local one).

Although one might assume that we are in a ‘post-Strike’ situation/world, the historian in me would suggest that we’re still in midst of ‘The Strike Process,’ even tho’ the strike-event itself is over.

While the resolution of the Strike (through the acceptance of most-of the student demands) does provide the College with a path forward, the administration’s engagement with ‘the Strike’ exposed some uncared-for wounds, while re-opening others that were partially- or only recently-healed.

“Telling Bryn Mawr Histories” — the goal of the course — makes the tellers acutely aware of their position with regards to the archive and the institution they are studying/analyzing. Although this is a complex situation for a scholar-researcher to navigate and analyze under ‘neutral’ circumstances, it is a necessary part of the knowledge-gathering process. In this case, students navigated an additional complication, as they were not ‘on neutral ground,’ they were critically thinking about decisions and processes placed in motion and controlled by ‘BMC-players’ who have more power than they do at their educational-home.

So, this seminar convened within a situation filled with possibilities, and the Black Lives Matter and MeToo movements — one with it’s imperative to recognize and dismantle white supremacy, and the other with it’s attention to consent, empathy, and volition — opened spaces for ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking and drew our attention to issues of ethics and our responsibility to ‘the past.’

The Instructor found his interactions with the members of the seminar to be both enriching and rewarding.

Computer Science Major, BMC’ 24

NASA L’SPACE Academy

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Chris Murphy

Field Site: NASA

Field supervisor: Dagmawi Sirak

Course Description:

This course aims to bridge school with the workforce and explores the process of transitioning an aerospace mission from conceptualization to implementation through NASA fieldwork. There is an emphasis on communication and interdisciplinary collaboration. Students will work in a team with others from a variety of backgrounds (including mathematics, computer science, and engineering) to learn NASA best practices and produce a technical Preliminary Design Review. Students are sorted into teams and assigned projects based on their respective backgrounds and locations, and are paired with a mentor for the duration of the Academy. The fieldwork is designed to be a student-driven project, where students are trained in critical areas each week during whole cohort sessions with Subject Matter Experts.

Reflection:

For my Praxis Independent Course, I was a part of the NASA L’SPACE Academy, where I worked with a team of engineers and scientists to design a secondary payload mission into the Venusian atmosphere. Our team was comprised of three divisions – business, science, and engineering – and I worked on the engineering team as a software engineer. This experience was very interesting because although my role focused on software and computing, it didn’t involve any programming. This was different than any experience I’d had up until this point because in classes, the focus was on learning and applying new programming concepts. However for this project, there was a heavy focus on balancing the design and software requirements with the mass, volume, and budget constraints- as well as ensuring we met the scientific objectives. Another difference I noticed was the interdisciplinary work and communication between members of the team. Because I worked with engineers from diverse backgrounds – including aerospace, mechanical, and electrical, asking about and explaining technical concepts to other members of the team was crucial to ensure we all had a thorough conceptual understanding so we could create a cohesive final product. Working across departments with the Business and Science teams meant that similar communication was needed, which was both new and enjoyable to me. Overall, I had a very positive experience working with my team in the NASA L’SPACE Academy, and I think it was extremely helpful for gaining practical experience and exposure to the aerospace industry.