Student Voices: Michaila Musman on the Museum Leaders Panel

Michaila Musman (IAC 2014-15) shared her thoughts on the WLP's symposium featuring a panel of female museum directors and curators. The discussion was titled “Leading the Nation’s Cultural Museums: Benefits and Challenges” and took place at the newly opened George Washington University Museum & Textile Museum. 

The panel included Susan Arensburg of the National Gallery of Art, Carrie Barratt of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Patrice Legro of the Koshland Science Museum, Jan Ramirez of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, Cathy Trost of the Newseum, Wilma L. Vaught of the Women In Military Service for America Memorial, and Camille Giraud Akeju of the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum.

This symposium was amazing! Just seeing all seven of the incredibly successful female leaders at the front of the room was exciting and empowering. Having representatives from several different museums was so interesting. The curatorial process for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Newseum are obviously very dissimilar, but the words of wisdom were generally unified and agreed upon across the panel. It was reassuring to hear that each woman had a different path or major before reaching their current position, even though museum work isn’t currently on my agenda. But as in the case of Wilma Vaughn, that could certainly change somewhere down the road.

At each symposium I am blown away by the amount of profound advice we receive. This Thursday was no

exception. I really took to heart their words about getting experience over the summer in whatever field seems interesting. The info about how the Smithsonian Museums often take interns really excited me. I would absolutely love to spend time working in the Museum of Natural History, currently my favorite DC museum. I’m thinking about looking into that next semester. I thought Ms. Ramirez’s account of the curatorial challenges of the 9/11 museum was really interesting. Finding the balance between informational and disrespectful seems incredibly difficult. When we spoke with Ms. Ramirez after, she advertised the possibility of interning there, which, while unrealistic for me geographically, seemed extremely cool!