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Michael Cassin studied art history, painting, and printmaking at the University of Leeds in Great Britain in the 1970s. Subsequently, he spent two years as artist-in-residence at a school in Essex. He began his career as a museum educator in 1979, at Southampton City Art Gallery. In 1981 he joined the staff of London's National Gallery, where initially he focused his attention on high school students and their teachers. Eventually he found himself working with audiences of all ages and all types, from children in kindergartens to students at every level of the British education system, and with the adult general public too. After 10 years in London, Michael was appointed Head of Education at the National Galleries of Scotland,where he was responsible for the education programs in all three NGS collections: the National Gallery, the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.
Ten years later, Michael moved again, across the Atlantic this time, to become Curator of Education at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA, where among other things, he currently directs the Clark's annual Docent Summer School. In 2007 the Clark launched a new initiative: Center for Education in the Visual Arts (CEVA) with Michael as Director. CEVA presents docent training programs in museums large and small, all across the US and organizes short colloquia each year, bringing together staff from museums, schools, and universities for small-scale, focused conversations of the kind that are not usually available elsewhere.
An active member of the International Council of Museums Committee for Education and Cultural Action (ICOM-CECA), Michael has lectured on museum education at conferences in Europe, America, Australia, and elsewhere. He recently ended a six-year term as Regional Coordinator for North America on ICOM-CECA's Board.
Michael has spent much of the last 30 years talking with, and listening to, museum visitors of all kinds. He firmly believes that museums can, and should, be gateways to a world of fascination, excitement, and wonder, and that engaging with works of art can help us understand the past, make sense of the present, and shape the future.
Art and costume historian Elizabeth Semmelhack's driving passion has been the power of "Why." It is the "Why", she asserts, that opens up an object—a shoe, a painting, a sculpture, an historic moment—to reveal the rich poetry, complexity, information, and knowledge that sharpen our questions and deepen our understanding of both the past and the present.
Since becoming Curator of Toronto's Bata Shoe Museum in 2000, Elizabeth's keen inquiries into the social meaning of fashion and material culture have led to major exhibitions, internationally acclaimed publications, and heightened public awareness of the Bata's unique collections. She is noted for groundbreaking research that focuses on the construction of gender in relation to the social and economic implications of dress with a specific focus on footwear, and her work has made her a sought after lecturer and consultant to institutions such as the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Elizabeth's publications include Heights of Fashion: A History of the Elevated Shoe with an introduction by Linda Nochlin, and On a Pedestal: Renaissance Chopines to Baroque Heels. She is author of exhibition catalogues, journal articles, book essays, and encyclopedia entries. Her most recent books, scheduled for publication in 2012, include SHOE to be published by Reaktion Press in London, and Roger Vivier to be published by Bata Shoe Museum.
Elizabeth's first academic love was for the language, literature, and art of Japan. She earned a BA from Bennington College and an MA in Art History from Tufts University, with academic distinction. After postgraduate work in Far East Asian Language at Cornell and Middlebury College, Elizabeth moved to St. Louis with a doctoral fellowship to study Art History at Washington University. From 1996 to 2000, she was Chief Art History Lecturer at the Saint Louis Art Museum where she developed adult public programs, conducted docent training, and co-curated exhibitions of Japanese art.
Elizabeth Semmelhack currently lives in Toronto with her husband and two children.
Michael Murawski has a vision for engaging the museum visitor—from students and teachers to tourists, adults, and grandparents. As Director of School Services at the Saint Louis Art Museum since 2009, Michael has brought energy, dynamism, and new ideas to his area of school services, docent education, and outreach programming to schools and teachers. He has created thematic and self-guided programs for K-12 students to support school curricula and to develop the types of thinking that facilitate thoughtful learning in the arts. Michael encourages docents to see their own role as collaborators with their visitors, and for all of us to see the art museum as a site for conversation, creativity, movement, music, poetry, and much more.
Prior to his current position, Michael served as Coordinator of Education and Public Programs at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University, St. Louis, where among his many responsibilities were the development of new museum audiences as well as the integration of the Kemper's collections and exhibitions into University and public school curricula.
In 2006, Michael received his PhD in Education from American University in Washington, DC, focusing his research on interdisciplinary learning in the arts.
A prolific writer, lecturer, and researcher, Michael has also recently been honored as Museum Educator of the Year by the Missouri Art Education Association. He regularly presents at regional and national conferences, including the 2011 National Art Education Association meeting where he co-presented "Pedagogy at the Core: Reframing Docent Education" and served as a panelist for the session entitled "What We Do Best: Making the Case for Informal Learning in School Programs."
Michael's vision of the engaged visitor includes active questioning, exploring, moving, and responding freely to what we see. His openness to new ideas allows him to risk entering where others might simply close the door. As a teacher he follows the Chinese proverb: "Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself." His training of docents equips them with varied approaches to provide museum visitors with the confidence and encouragement to embrace the museum experience as rich, informed, and personal.
Daniel A. Reich has been Curator and Director of Education at the St. Louis Holocaust Museum and Learning Center since 2000. In 2009, he was recognized by the Jewish Professional Organization of St. Louis for outstanding achievements in education, and the following year he received the Fred A. Goldstein Memorial Service Award for Outstanding Leadership presented by the Jewish Federation of St. Louis.
Dan received a BFA from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. His junior year was spent abroad at Tyler School of Art in Rome. He went on to study Art History, earning an MA at the University of Maryland, College Park, and continued with doctoral studies at the University of Chicago. In Chicago he became Curator of the Epstein Photography Archive, taught college courses, and wrote reviews for the New Art Examiner.
A skillful communicator and teacher, Dan has trained docent classes in university museums, art museums and history museums. From 1986 to 1999, he was Head of Adult Public Programs in the Education Department of the Saint Louis Art Museum, and he has returned often as a popular and engaging speaker. Dan is well regarded among docents for his deep thinking and inspiring responses to complex material. In developing public programs in a variety of museum settings, he retains unwavering belief in the central and primary role of the well-trained docent in maximizing the visitors' interpretive experience.
Moderator: Michael Murawski, Saint Louis Art Museum
Panelists: Stephanie Parrish, Portland Art Museum; Elizabeth Diament, National Gallery of Art; and Rika Burnham, The Frick Collection
MICHAEL MURAWSKI is the School Services Director at the Saint Louis Art Museum, where he has directed school, teacher, and docent programs since 2009. Prior to this, he served as Coordinator of Education and Public Programs at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum (Washington University in St. Louis). He received his MA and PhD in Education from American University in Washington, DC, where his research focused on curriculum development and interdisciplinary learning in the arts. Most recently, Michael was honored as the 2011 Art Museum Educator of the Year by the Missouri Art Education Association.
STEPHANIE PARRISH is the Manager of Docent Programs and Gallery Teaching at the Portland Art Museum (Oregon). Over the course of her museum career, she has worked in educational and curatorial positions at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum (Washington University in St. Louis), the Saint Louis Art Museum, and the National Museum of American Art/National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian Institution). She has taught courses in museum learning as well as art history at Portland State University, Oregon State University, and Portland Community College, and is currently a board member of the Oregon Art Education Association. She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in art history from New York University (BA) and Washington University in St. Louis (MA).
ELIZABETH DIAMENT has been an educator for nine years at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, where she manages school tours and docent programs. Liz has a degree in Art History from the University of Manchester and a master's degree in Museum Education from Bank Street College of Education. She has just completed a restructuring of the new docent education program at the Gallery and is excited to share some of her research, ideas, and discoveries.
RIKA BURNHAM is the Head of Education at The Frick Collection. Previously, she was Associate Museum Educator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She is a guest lecturer at art museums across the country, a lecturer at Teachers College Columbia University, the visiting museum educator for the Summer Teacher Institute of Contemporary Art, and the project director of the Teaching Institute for Museum Educators at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. With Elliott Kai-Kee, Rika Burnham is coauthor of The Art of Teaching in the Museum: Interpretation as Experience and Museum Education and the Project of Interpretation in the Twenty-First Century. Rika has been recognized and honored by numerous awards for her work in art museum education.
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