Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

Web-cast lecture series to focus on museum studies

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Emerging developments in elite museum studies are now only a click away for the faculty, staff and students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The work and world of the museum, as seen through the lens of one expert at a time, is now available to anyone at Illinois, by means of the Smithsonian Institution’s new G. Brown Goode Smithsonian Education Lecture Series.

The lecture series and a myriad of other services and benefits are available to the people and programs at the U. of I. because the university is a full-fledged affiliate of the institution in Washington, D.C.

Illinois gained affiliate status last September. It is among a handful of institutions of higher education that have been granted affiliate status; most affiliates are individual museums.

The Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies, in collaboration with the science education department of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, launched the Goode Smithsonian lecture series in early June. All lectures will be broadcast live on the Web. A link at that site also includes lecture schedule updates.

Named after the Smithsonian’s earliest proponent of museums as educational institutions, the series allows S.I. museum staff and S.I. affiliates everywhere the opportunity to keep abreast of emerging developments in education pertaining to many aspects of their work, from exhibit design to outreach in schools.

Kevin Dunbar, Center for Cognitive and Educational Neuroscience at Dartmouth College, delivered the first lecture in the series. His topic was “Designers at the Exhibition: Balancing Aesthetics and Learning at the Museum.”

Three U. of I. units – the Krannert Art Museum, the University Library and the Sousa Archives and Center for American Music (SACAM) – got the affiliation process rolling. S.I. affiliate benefits are available to them, as well as to all other U. of I. museums, galleries and collections and to all other interested campus units and staff members.

For more information about the campuswide benefits of the Smithsonian affiliation, contact Scott Schwartz, SACAM archivist and primary contact between the U. of I. and the affiliates’ program.

For more information about the lecture series contact Bruce C. Craig, Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies at 202-357-3148 or bcraig@si.edu.

Read Next

Life sciences Portrait of the research team posing together.

Minecraft players can now explore whole cells and their contents

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Scientists have translated nanoscale experimental and computational data into precise 3D representations of bacteria, yeast and human epithelial, breast and breast cancer cells in Minecraft, a video game that allows players to explore, build and manipulate structures in three dimensions. The innovation will allow researchers and students of all ages to navigate […]

Arts Photo of seven dancers onstage wearing blue tops and orange or yellow flowing skirts. The backdrop is a Persian design.

February Dance includes works experimenting with live music, technology and a ‘sneaker ballet’

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The dance department at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will present February Dance 2025: Fast Forward this week at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. February Dance will be one of the first performances in the newly renovated Colwell Playhouse Theatre since its reopening. The performances are Jan. 30-Feb. 1. Dance professor […]

Honors portraits of four Illinois researchers

Four Illinois researchers receive Presidential Early Career Award

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Four researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign were named recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on young professionals at the outset of their independent research careers. The winners this year are health and kinesiology professor Marni Boppart, physics professor Barry Bradlyn, chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Ying […]

Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

507 E. Green St
MC-426
Champaign, IL 61820

Email: stratcom@illinois.edu

Phone (217) 333-5010