City of Greater Sudbury Museum’s Curatorial Assistant said Fleming prepared her for the ‘real world’
Meghan Walsh took the Museum Management and Curatorship program, interned at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, and is now working as the Curatorial Assistant for the City of Greater Sudbury Museums. Here is Meghan’s Fleming story:
“Before coming to Fleming College, I attended Trent University in the Bachelor of Arts Honours program of Anthropological Archaeology. After my studies at Trent, which provided me with a sound basis in research and a taste of hands-on learning, I knew I wanted to take those research skills and put them towards developing new ways of engaging people with history. Given my passion for working with objects, it simply made sense to explore the world of museums!
My experience at Fleming was one of the most valuable, challenging and fun experiences of my adult life. In terms of course work, we flew through one applied project after another, acquiring new skills, meeting new challenges, and dealing with situations exactly like those that we could expect to find in our future museum careers. My internship at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies in Banff, Alberta, was an experience of a lifetime. Having the opportunity to work in both the Heritage Collections and Archives, I gained experience working with a large variety of materials; from art pieces to artifacts, and photographs to film strips. All of these experiences and projects were integral in preparing me for my current job as a Curatorial Assistant.
As Curatorial Assistant for the City of Greater Sudbury Museums, I take on a vast array of duties including (and certainly not limited to): collections management, curatorial research, programming, policy writing, strategic planning, volunteer coordination, clerical work and marketing. Much of my day-to-day has involved researching local history for a number of different projects, including two new exhibits that we are curating for two of the museums we manage: The Anderson Farm Museum and the Rayside-Balfour Museum. I also take on the responsibility of managing our social media platforms, which is a lot of fun to think up new ways to engage audiences online. All in all, working for the City of Greater Sudbury Museums has provided me with a view into all the different pieces that have to come together to make a museum function.
The Museum Management and Curatorship program definitely prepared me for my job. I almost feel like I am back at Fleming because it is so fast-paced with multiple projects all going on at the same time. I’m also working and collaborating with different people all over the city, which was similar to our final exhibit project in the MMC program, during which I was a Project Manager. My experience here at the Greater Sudbury Museums has really made me realize how well our teachers in the MMC program prepared us for the “real world” of museum work. The fact that we actually got to do a good portion of our course work in a real museum (the Peterborough Museum & Archives) was an invaluable experience for us as emerging museum professionals. I think that really speaks to the experience of our teachers and that they want to see us succeed– they challenged us and gave us the tools we needed to succeed in our field.”