As a way to connect with the SMU student population, the Meadows Museum now offers a student docent program. The program, which took shape last year, is similar to those established by other university museums, such as the Blanton Museum at the University of Texas.
The student docent program is aimed at any currently enrolled student who has a love for art, not just one who’s course study focuses on it. Of the 23 students currently involved in the program, majors range from art history, to communications, to a law student who possesses a love for Santiago Calatrava, the Spanish architect responsible for the motorized, wave-like sculpture outside the museum.
Starting earlier this semester, the student docents participated in a crash-course training program. They earned how to interact with museum guests and gained an understanding of the pieces of art inside Meadows. Regular docent training can take up to a year or more before the docents are ready for action, but not in the case of the student docents. The students, who have been training for four to six months, are already teaching and involved in campus tours. By no later than January, the docents will be ready for touring and teaching within the museum itself.
The Meadows Museum’s approach toward the docents is unique in that the students are not expected to learn Spanish art from the 10th century to the present. The program focuses more on a facilitation teaching method, which means knowing how to talk to people about art, not necessarily everything about a certain piece. Currently, the student docents are in the process of learning a method called Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS). VTS is a practice of asking questions that generate discussion. In this sense, the students do not have to know a great deal about a certain piece of art to motivate discussion and new ideas.
Scott Winterrowd, assistant curator of education at Meadows Museum, believes that allowing the student docents participate in teaching early gain a greater amount of knowledge and experience.
“We want them to be facilitators, we want them to be getting people to talk about art…having people look at a painting and getting something out of it visually, rather than relying on that label on the wall,” Winterrowd said.
The program began in correlation with a grant received from the Wachovia Foundation. The grant is currently serving 750 students from three Dallas-area middle schools, and aims to generate interest in students planning to pursue education after high school. The student docents represent the link between the middle school students and SMU, by way of the Meadows Museum. The student docents answer questions regarding college life in general, but also interact with prospective students in the art galleries and lead activities. One of these activities is a workshop tour program, which includes studio activities as well as looking at art in the galleries. The workshop tour, which kicks off in January, will make full use of the student docents.
Winterrowd sees the student docent program as a way to build up the relationship between the museum and the rest of the university.
“Across the country, our colleagues at other university museums, everybody bemoans the fact that people just don’t use the institution the way that you would think they would on a university campus,” said Winterrowd. “The hope is by getting students involved in teaching in a much more invested way in the museum, they will help to spread that to other students.”
In order to inform students of the docent program, the Meadows Museum began sending mass e-mails in early September. Fliers were placed in the student mailboxes on campus, which, according to Winterrowd, were most successful at relaying the message to the university. Senior french major and current student docent Katy Crawford heard about the program through Facebook, the online social networking Web site.
“A friend of mine already worked at the museum and had set up an event for the information sessions,” Crawford said. “I’ve always been interested in working in museums and thought this would be a great opportunity, since you don’t need a background in art history or any specific field.”
Crawford, as well as the other student docents, are still in the process of training, but is already seeing the program as a positive experience.
“I’m really enjoying the experience of working with the people at the museum, along with the great collection of artwork at Meadows,” Crawford said. “I think this will be a valuable learning experience for me, personally, both in working with art and in being articulate and engaging before a group.”
If interested in the student docent program, visit the Meadows Museum Web site or contact Scott Winterrowd at 214-768-4993.
