Blessings on you Christopher Dawson!  I was trying to find a polite way to
express my irritation at people who "settle" for working in a museum until
they get something "better" and you have said it beautifully.


Janice Klein
Director (a professional museum administrator and proud of it)
Mitchell Museum of the American Indian, Kendall College
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-----Original Message-----
From: Christopher J. Dawson <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Friday, March 24, 2000 12:38 PM
Subject: Re: Masters/PhD issue


>Well, my two cents would be to go for the Ph.D.  If you really want to be a
>professor, don't go into museum work, because it doesn't sound like
>something you really want, just something to "dabble in" until you get to
>the holy land of the university.  Museum work isn't something to dabble in
>en route to a Ph.D., it is a career of its own, and requires the commitment
>(even more so) than a university professorship.
>
>To be honest, I have a Master's, and I choose to work in the museum field,
>and I plan on making it a long career.  I have encountered Ph.D.s in this
>field, but a lot of them are here as a "way station," either because they
>can't get that teaching job they covet, so they "settle" for working here,
>or just a place to bide their time and keep their resume warm while they
>maneuver around to get a tenure-track teaching position.
>
>It's annoying.  There's a lot of work that needs to be done in the museum
>world, and it requires commitment.  We don't have the luxury of working 9
>hours a week, for 8 months of the year.  We work a lot of long hours, and
we
>work to make the museum a better place.  It's serious business, and people
>who are serious about it should enter the field.
>
>When I left my Ph.D. program for this job, I was summarily dismissed by one
>of my professors, who told me that the museum world was full of "amateurs,"
>and "little old ladies in sensible shoes."  Yet, in my work, I directly
>impact more people than my professor ever will.  A few people a year take
>his classes, and no one reads his book.  Yet the exhibits I curate or the
>articles I write reach a much broader audience, which has always been my
>goal.
>
>I'm a public historian, and proud of it.  If you want to be an academic,
>choose that route, and don't dabble in this world.  Go for the Ph.D.
>program.  Good luck, because it'll be tough.  But if that's your goal,
>you'll find it rewarding as well.  I've certainly found public history much
>more rewarding than academic history.
>
>
>
>Christopher J. Dawson
>Curator of Urban and Industrial History
>Crawford Museum of Transportation and Industry Design Task Force
>Western Reserve Historical Society
>10825 East Boulevard
>Cleveland, Ohio 44106
>216-721-5722 x247
>[log in to unmask]
>
>"Next week there can't be any crisis.  My schedule is already full." --
>Henry Kissinger
>
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