Deb, add about a decade to each of your 20+ and 30+ scenarios, and you are close. [OK, bear with me, here, I am once again chiming in with the wisdom of (moderately) old age & personal experience]. At least in the Western U.S., prior to (and during) the 1960s Museum Studies courses were embedded in a disciplinary field. I think most often in Anthropology, because of the Native American and other ethnographic collections held in Anthropology and Natural History Museums that were often on University campuses. (Notably the Burke Museum at UW, the Lowie at UCBerkeley, the Denver Natural History Museum, and LA museums including UCLA.) History museums at that time were usually connected with state or local historical societies and were staffed with people with history degrees (larger museums) or with local historians both of whom got their museum experience on the job. There were some exceptions such as (I think) the Cooperstown program. Art Museums were similar. In the late 60s and the 70s, museum studies programs started springing up in other colleges and universities, and began more and more crossing over into history departments, especially those with faculty interested in what was then called "The New Social History". More and more museums required Master's degrees. By the 1980s there were lots more Museum Studies courses and some were becoming interdisciplinary, such as the one I was associated with at Oregon State University. Students in an interdisciplinary Master's Program could prepare for museums in different disciplines, with basics of collection care and management, educational programming, management, etc. that are universal in any museum. The wisdom of AAM guidelines written about 1980 was that students should have a strong disciplinary background gained at the undergraduate level in addition to museum studies courses, usually at the Master's level --wisdom that still is good, I think. Having been out of academia for 10 years now, I'm not sure of the details but there certainly are a plethora of Museum Studies programs and it seems one is ever less sure what the actual training has been when hiring someone with a certificate or a degree. Overall, though, the quality and training of people coming into the field seems to be so very much higher than it was 30 years ago. The other great advance has been the fabulous professional training workshops and programs sponsored by AAM, AASLH, conservation labs, etc. The museum professionals who came in 20 - 40 years ago (with or without a specific Museum Studies degree) who took advantage of those are probably as well or better trained than folks with a recent Master's in Museum Studies. The advances in technology and changes in legal issues and funding challenges means that what it takes to run at museum continue to change rapidly, so those workshops will continue to be critical to those who want to stay current in the field regardless of their academic background. Lucy Sperlin -----Original Message----- From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Deb Fuller Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2006 5:11 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: education vs. experience - history of museum studies programs Eugene, et al, On 8/13/06, Eugene Dillenburg <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > I agree with Martin -- every institution is going to be different. (In a > large institution, you may even find differences department-to-department > And smaller museums tended to have a greater mistrust of museum studies > education.) But in general, when looking for a job in exhibits, two years' > experience working is worth a lot more than two years of study. Have you noticed any changing trends in education v. experience? For example, classroom teachers usually just needed a bachelor's in education to teach and now they are being pushed to get a master's or even a PhD if they are teaching HS. Nurses are the same way. The 3-year nursing school is pretty much gone and most programs are the 5-year BSN. I've noticed that "older" museum professionals, meaning ones that have been in the field for at least 20 years, usually have a degree in their subject area but rarely any museum-related degrees. I think most of that is due to the fact that museum degree and certification programs are relatively new and if you've been a director of a museum for a number of years, you don't really have the time nor the motivation to get another degree. I also think another factor is that 30+ years ago, most people didn't really choose to go into the museum field. They kind of stumbled upon it and stayed. Today, there are tons of academic museum programs and people looking to go into the museum field. Do you think that in another 20+ years, the paradigm will shift to people with museum-specific degrees or certifications who choose the museum field instead of stumbled upon it? What about in Europe? It seems like the Europeans have had academic museum programs longer than here in the US. (Or maybe I just know all the old museum academians. :) Deb ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . 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