OMA 2024 Student Scholarship Blog -Valerie Metzger
The Ohio Museums Association is committed to connecting and empowering museum professionals at all stages of their career — including our student and emerging museum professionals!
For our 2024 OMA Annual Conference, OMA was very proud to offer students seeking careers in the museum field, scholarships to attend OMA 2024 in Sandusky.
We're continuing our 2024 Conference series with this week's post from Student Scholarship WInner, Valerie Metzger! Valerie is a Graduate Student at the University of Akron. Valerie has a Post-baccalaureate certificate: Museums & Archives Studies, completed in May, and is starting the M.A. program in Applied History & Public Humanities, begining in August, 2024.
Valerie is the Student Assistant at the Institute for Human Science & Culture in Akron, and also sits on the Museum Development Committee at the Oviatt House, in Richfield, Ohio.
Did you miss our previous Conference Blog posts? Learn more about the Conference Blog series and read our previous entries here.
Inspiration and Connection at the 2024 OMA Conference
OMA 2024 was a special milestone for me because it marked my entry into the field of museum work after 17 years as a commercial interior designer. I was able to attend the OMA conference on a student scholarship due to my enrollment in the Museums & Archives certificate program at the University of Akron. This unique program allowed me to quickly gain the knowledge, experience, and connections to move forward in a new career.
I have always enjoyed museums, and my interior design background gave me an understanding of how our environments affect our well-being. I believe working in a museum will give me greater enjoyment and purpose in my career, and attending OMA 2024 positively reinforced that decision. The lectures and the one-on-one conversations I had with professionals made a lasting impression.
My favorite lecture was Making the Most of the Moore House: Deaccession and New Uses by Kaitlyn Donaldson, Curator and Senior Collections Manager of the Lorain Historical Society. This presentation truly exemplified the conference theme of “Sustaining Museums for Future Climates”.
The LHS owns two historic buildings and until recently also rented a storage space off-site. When faced with a $3M quote to build a new storage facility, Kaitlyn got creative about repurposing the existing properties. What if the Moore House, which followed the traditional historic home model, could become “active storage” for the collection, and the rented space could be vacated?
After analyzing the collection, Kaitlyn found that it had to be significantly reduced in order to fit into Moore House. She reached out to the community to gauge their reaction to this idea, and was able to gain overwhelming support. Then she hired Jen Neuhaus as the new Collections Manager and they got to work evaluating, deaccessioning, and discarding items.
I love this story because it proves that new construction is not always the answer. Kaitlyn’s solution saved the LHS from spending millions of dollars on an unnecessary building, it took just months to complete, and now Moore House is used for school trips and has been repurposed in a modern way. The collection is also more accessible to the public and LHS staff - no more trips to offsite storage! This was a fiscally responsible and environmentally sustainable solution that has encouraged new interest and better serves the community in Lorain. I aspire to make the kind of positive impact in my career that Kaitlyn and Jen have.
My other favorite part of the conference was speaking one-on-one with professionals and asking them about their organizations and roles. I talked to people from art museums, historical societies, government organizations, and parks, as well as museum consultants. Some were from large institutions with hundreds of employees and others were a team of one.
Their personal stories and advice are so valuable as I try to find my ideal job. Being exposed to the options and possibilities in the museum field made me feel confident and optimistic for my future. This was a warm and welcoming group that I am proud to now be a part of, and I look forward to next year’s event.