Meadows Museum Unveils Redesigned Student Program for 2023-24

The Meadows Museum has long been employing SMU students to assist with the Museums’ Visitor Services desk and gift shop, but with the newly redesigned Meadows Museum Student Corps program, participating students will now gain valuable museum career experience and professional development.

This program, which will be composed of four students taking on the role of Museum Experience Ambassadors, is a great fit for students interested in museum career paths. In addition to staffing the Museum’s Visitor Services desk, gift shop, and family programs, these selected ambassadors will receive three training sessions per academic year focused on careers and issues within the museum field. As an industry that is notoriously difficult to break into – many museum positions, even at entry-level, require at least one year of professional experience – this program will give interested students a leg up once they hit the job market. In fact, several current staff members at the Museum, including the new director Amanda Dotseth, got their start in visitor services roles similar to this new program.

“We are excited to work directly with current SMU students in a way that helps the students, the museum and our visitors,” says Briana Long, Manager of Visitor Experience at the Meadows Museum. “With this program, we can provide a hands-on learning experience for upcoming museum professionals and invest the time it takes to train them to be the true face of the museum.”

With the draw of professional development and museum training components, the program intends to cultivate Museum Experience Ambassadors who will continue in the role beyond just a single academic year. In doing so, these Ambassadors will become a familiar face at the Museum and will create a more welcoming environment for guests which, in turn, will help grow a larger family audience. Building family audiences and programs is a current focus of the Meadows Museum in order to become more engaged and integrated with the community.

“The Museum is thrilled to be able to expand and enhance our engagement with the communities of Dallas through the Museum Experience Ambassadors’ work,” says Anne Kindseth, Director of Education at the Meadows Museum. “Between the training, professional development, and visitor services work, we are so pleased to now be able to provide a museum career experience for SMU students in a strategic way.”

The four students selected for the 2023-24 Meadows Museum Student Corps program are Valeria Barrera, Lucia Hinojosa, Andreina Rodriguez, and Soliyana Woldestsadik, all of whom are Meadows School of the Arts students. They will begin their work as Museum Experience Ambassadors at the start of the next academic year in August.