Martha's Vineyard Museum internship confirms career choice

Lian Perez ’14 believes that she has discovered her future career through her Randolph College studies. Working as a public relations intern at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum this summer, she has explored that career path and learned more about museum promotion and marketing.

And it’s a perfect fit, she says.

“I’ve always wanted to do something related to art, but I didn’t really want to follow a curatorial route,” said Perez, who is majoring in art history and museum studies. “I love working with artifacts, but I’m more interested in working with people.”

On a trip to New York during her sophomore year, Perez decided to pursue a career in museum marketing and communications. She has been taking many communication studies classes, too, in preparation for that.

“Communicating effectively and putting out the best image of the museum helps the museum to grow,” she said. “If you are a nonprofit museum, you rely on your supporters. They want to see that their donations are being used wisely.”

Last year, she was excited to discover an internship opportunity at the museum of the well-known resort island Martha’s Vineyard. She worked with Maryam Brown ’02, Randolph’s internship coordinator, to perfect her application. An interview over the phone then went very smoothly. “The initial reaction was very positive and I could tell I would be able to work well with them,” she said.

After being selected for the internship, Perez applied for and received a Randolph Innovative Student Experience grant to help cover the costs of moving to Martha’s Vineyard for the summer for the internship.

Perez has been working on a variety of marketing and events tasks, everything from writing a press release to announce an upcoming program to crowd control during an event. This has taught her many aspects of planning and executing educational and fundraising events, lessons she looks forward to applying when she helps raise money and plan for Randolph’s senior dinner dance this year.

But most importantly, this internship has confirmed that she made a good decision to pursue this career. “I go into the internship every day exciting and smiling. Sometimes I don’t want to leave,” she said. “It makes me feel really confident that I’m going to be very happy with my career. A lot of people are unhappy with their employment, so it’s nice to know that I’ll be happy and really enjoy what I’m doing.”

Museum studies students work at Anne Spencer House and Garden Museum

Six Randolph students spent Thursday afternoon doing hands-on curatorial work in the former home of a famous poet.

Art professor Andrea Campbell took some of her museum studies students to the Anne Spencer House and Garden Museum, where they carefully measured, photographed, and squinted at artifacts through magnifying glasses. This semester, they will be researching the artifacts so they can be properly cataloged and displayed in the museum.

Anne Spencer was a Harlem Renaissance poet who lived just a few miles from the College. Her husband, Edward Spencer, was a postal carrier whose route included R-MWC, and many artifacts in the home came from the College.

The students’ work was covered by two news organizations. You can learn more about their work in this News & Advance article and this WDBJ-7 video.

You also can view more photos of the project in this Facebook photo album.

This project grew out of a partnership the College has established with the museum to provide opportunities for students and to help the museum preserve the history there.