2019-2020
Kelley Tackett, Class of 2020 and Zoe Zimmermann, Class of 2022, HMSG Co-Presidents
The Haffenreffer Museum Student Group is a small club on campus with a big love for anything and everything museum-related. This year, as Co-Presidents, we have focused on making the student experience in the HMSG enriching and fulfilling. We approached this goal by encouraging our members to take the lead in deciding which direction the group would take. While we facilitated the organization, planning, and leadership for our events, we were constantly looking for feedback and input from the group. Their creativity and passion for museums led us on adventures to the RISD Nature Lab, to lectures from guest speakers like Professor Steven Lubar, and to workshops on topics such as Careers & Internships and Museum Accessibility. We hope that our activities this year have allowed our members to engage more deeply with museum topics they are passionate about as well as given them a platform on which they can explore and share that passion.
Following the University’s move online due to COVID-19, we attempted to remain engaged with our members through virtual museum tours and social media trends. We didn’t realize how many ideas from our workshop on museum accessibility we would be putting into action so soon! While the election of next year’s leadership and certain other end-of-the-year events have moved online, the community the student group represents is untarnished. We continue to provide a space to learn about and question the role of museums in the world, now more than ever, and to imagine new and unexpected ways to interact with material culture. While we weren’t able to hold every meeting we had planned this year (including a visit to the Haffenreffer collections in Bristol, RI!), we have no doubt that the student group will continue to bridge the University’s collections and the student body moving forward in new and innovative ways. We’re excited for the directions next year’s leadership will bring, and to explore together how museums can help us navigate a new world.
2020-2021
Béatrice Duchastel de Montrouge, Class of 2023 and Zoe Zimmermann, Class of 2022, HMSG Co-Presidents
Due to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, student activities at Brown this year faced the unique challenge of operating completely online. For a group that is centered around museum spaces, it goes without saying that we were crushed. But, like last year’s presidents, we were ready to make the best of an exceptional situation, trading in our usual meeting space of Manning Hall for a Zoom room. Our biggest goal was to maintain the student community fostered by the Haffenreffer Museum Student Group, providing a space for us to talk about our shared love of museums in the face of the challenges posed by being fully remote. Along with that, we strived to take advantage of online opportunities, visiting digital museum exhibits like Raymond Hood and the American Skyscraper as well as virtual escape rooms themed around museums.
But our most successful endeavor was our series of guest speakers, who “zoomed” in from all over the world. Throughout the year, curators, public historians, conservators, collection managers, and museum educators spoke to the group about their various professional experiences within the field. We ended our semester with our annual Careers and Internships workshop, a fitting conclusion to a year that became focused on the different paths our members could pursue post-Brown. While we definitely all look forward to meeting in Manning Hall again soon, we also think that we’ll look back fondly at our experience as HMSG presidents this past year, regardless of the less-than-ideal circumstances.
2021-2022
Béatrice Duchastel de Montrouge, Class of 2023 and Kristen Marchetti, Class of 2022, HMSG Co-Presidents
After a year and a half of virtual meetings, it was a pleasure to resume in person activities with the Haffenreffer Museum Student Group during the 2021-2022 school year. We were excited to serve as co-presidents of a cohort of undergraduate and graduate students enthusiastic about museum institutions and issues during this return-to-form, which started, of course, with returning to Manning Hall. Finally back in the Haffenreffer Museum, the student group toured the exhibit, Transient Matter: Assemblages of Migration in the Mediterranean. We chatted about the exhibit’s design, content, and impact while eating Flatbread’s pizza, a true novelty on the heels of a full year in social isolation.
Since then, we have taken advantage of the ability to meet in person to visit spaces such as the RISD Nature Lab, the special collections at the John Hay Library, the RISD Museum, and the Brown University Herbarium, talking with specialists in each space, such as librarians Heather Cole and Tiffini Bowers, conservators Anna Rose Keefe and Jessica Urick, curator Emily Banas, and professor of Ecology, Becky Kartzinel. Through these activities, we were able to strengthen the community of our existing group, as well as grow to include many new members. We hope to continue our visits with our most ambitious plan yet—going to the main Haffenreffer site in Bristol. Overall, we are happy to have been able to serve as co-presidents during a long-awaited return to campus, opening up new potential for the Haffenreffer Museum Student Group.
All photos courtesy the authors | Cover photography by Juan Arce