About the Author
Hugh Crean is professor of the Department of Art and Art History.
DO TOUCH: 'Hands-on' Art History
Hugh Crean
crean@adelphi.edu
The Seminar
The Department of Art and Art History offers a seminar entitled “Art Museums, Collectors, and Connoisseurs.” Offered this fall semester for only the second time, this course results from a lifetime of professional experience in the areas covered and uses the vast resources of the Metropolitan Museum of Art as its laboratory. Because classes are held on–site at the museum, the course is a hands-on experience for students. While visiting departments and locations “behind closed doors”--those never open to the public--students meet a wide variety of the museum’s professional staff: curators, conservators, librarians, and registrars, as well as personnel in publications, education, and visitor services. The seminar, therefore, provides an educational experience based on a behind-the-scenes critical evaluation of the workings of a great museum. Students are exposed to the rigors of professional debate and investigation involved in the presentation and interpretation of objects for public display in the galleries. The lessons learned at the MMA are then applied to individual case studies of museums on Long Island, thereby “bringing the lessons home.” The objective is to provide Adelphi students with sophisticated intellectual skills and visual acuity along with the educational components necessary to critically evaluate any museum in relation to its mission.
Museums: The View from Inside
Museums attract millions of visitors each year. Often, they are the reason people choose to visit or live in one city rather than another. From mummies to Monet, from Picasso to Jackson Pollack, lavish and frequent museum exhibitions have become a form of grand spectacle and public entertainment. While great art museums are primarily places for the quiet contemplation of works of art, they are also research institutes, where ongoing scholarship enhances the understanding of works of art and where the evolution of art history as a discipline manifests itself in the constantly changing public presentation of works of art. Despite this, most visitors approach the museum as an entertaining experience rather than an intellectual one. They enjoy rather than question. Sensory pleasure offered by beautiful objects is undoubtedly a large measure of the public’s attraction to museums, but there are other treasures for the curious and for those taught to look deeper. This seminar introduces students to the art museum in all its manifestations--from great encyclopedic museums such as the MMA to small municipal institutions, house museums, and local historical societies. Students examine the role of “mission” as the abiding guide to strategic art collecting and critically examine the complex issues involved in the presentation of those collections to the public.
Long Island Museum Seminar Project
In one segment of the seminar, students apply the knowledge and experience gained at the MMA, from lectures and assigned readings to a case study of a Long Island Museum. One museum is assigned per student, with findings presented to the group in class. In this way, students are exposed to the wide variety of museums in their own backyard. All the areas of museological concern are discussed and debated. Students are encouraged to visit their assigned museum as a member of the public and to evaluate the quality of the educational experiences offered on that level. On return visits, they are asked to study the structure of the museum’s governance, meet its curatorial staff, and evaluate its conservation approaches, its funding, and its educational programs. These topics are evaluated by students using their experiences at MMA and the guidelines of the American Association of Museums, along with other professional standards. What emerges is a critical ability among seminar participants to evaluate a museum visit on many levels and to understand the professional organization and everyday activities of a variety of museums.
Benefit to Long Island Teachers
It occurred to me that the high quality material and sophisticated insights gathered by Adelphi students in this seminar could be of great help to Long Island teachers of all school grades. Typically, teachers are not well prepared for the optimum educational experience available from a museum visit with their students. Materials and information on how to use specific museums as educational experiences are obscure and hard to locate. As a result, the class visit, usually hastily prepared, becomes more a loosely organized “field trip” than a rich educational experience for students and teachers alike.
Interdisciplinary Outcome
The enthusiastic support of Professor Mary Manning of the Adelphi University Library; Ms. Astrid Palm, Director, Faculty Center for Professional Excellence; and Professor Devin Thornberg of the Education Department for this project has led to an exciting interdisciplinary effort--the conception of an AU Web site where local teachers can easily access information and lesson plans for use in the preparation and execution of their school visits to Long Island museums.
This site proposes to offer critical evaluation of local museums and their exhibitions based on the student research projects and the seminar material. It will provide useful educational materials that relate permanent collections on Long Island to school curricula. It will thereby prompt and assist teachers, through readily available lesson plans and activities, to get optimum educational use from visits to selected Long Island’s museums. In this way, the University can play a leadership role in bringing together museums and educational institutions on Long Island for their mutual benefit and in the interests of both students and their teachers. 
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