Public scholarship is a central tenet of the Museum Studies Program. Five of the faculty appointed in Museum Studies hold the title of Public Scholar. Other Museum Studies faculty and adjuncts, like many faculty across the IUPUI campus, are committed to public scholarship as well.

Simply put, public scholarship is the notion that the research and teaching we do is both with and for “the public.” We have varied ways of framing who those publics are – community partners, indigenous communities world-wide, families in informal learning settings, homeless – but our public scholarship is done in partnership with those publics to address their needs and concerns.

As a result, the way we craft our research and teaching may look a little different than the standard academic; it is generally collaborative and outcomes-focused, and it usually has final products that are accessible to and valued by the community – exhibits, web sites, evaluation data and reports, curricula, feasibility reports, inventories. (Specific examples of current projects are below). Because public scholarship’s products are often more diverse than just the standard book or peer-reviewed journal article, we invest considerable time and attention in evaluating it to document that it has all the rigor and meets all the expectations of any university faculty member’s scholarship.

We also publish and share our work as broadly as possible within and without the academy. We are interested in furthering the discourse of public scholarship and the scholarship of civically engaged and transformative teaching. If you are interested in joining in on the conversations about the roles of public scholars in universities and museums, contact museum@iupui.edu.

Examples of public scholarship by Museum Studies faculty:

Elee Wood, Public Scholar of Museums, Families, and Learning

My public scholar work encompasses a wide range of projects at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis , where I work closely with the school programs department to evaluate and strengthen programming, support the family learning initiative, and work with exhibit development teams to investigate new strategies for presenting concepts. I’ve also worked with other area museums in connection with class projects on program evaluation and museum theatre.

Larry Zimmerman, Public Scholar of Native American Representation

My position is partnered with the Eiteljorg Museum. We’ve just completed a three semester Museum Studies class sequence targeting the concept of contact, a theme being considered for renewing the museum’s Native American galleries. We’ll plan more classes like this and are now working on short term projects involving Native popular culture, including comic books and the movies. I’m also the primary organizer for an Inter-Congress of the World Archaeological Congress on Indigenous Representation in Museums, planned for 2009, that will bring folks from all over the world. As a sideline, I’m doing research on the archaeology of homeless, looking into the use and distribution of material culture.

Liz Kryder-Reid, Director of Museum Studies

I have been working in partnership with the other faculty and with museum and library staff in a project funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services. We have developed Shaping Outcomes, an on-line course in outcomes based planning in evaluation designed for museum and library professionals and students in those fields. I think Shaping Outcomes will be a valuable resource for those museums and libraries doing projects and programs that are centered around making a difference in the lives of their audiences. Check out the project at www.shapingoutcomes.org and let us know what you think.

Paul Mullins, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Adjunct faculty in Museum Studies

My scholarship uses archaeology and oral history to examine the relationship between racism and the material world.  My work focuses on the predominately African-American communities that lived in Indianapolis’ near-Westside for over a century before being uprooted by the expansion of the Indiana University Medical Center and IUPUI.  I work with community organizations including the Ransom Place Neighborhood Association and the Lockefield Civic Organization conducting archaeological excavations and collecting oral histories from community elders.  I teach material culture studies and write and teach on material issues ranging from Barbie collecting to doughnut consumption.   More information on my courses and research can be found at http://www.iupui.edu/~anthpm/home.html