Museum Studies Certificate
This program provides, in both a museum and a classroom environment, the basic scholarship and functional training to equip the student with the skills necessary to assume professional entry-level museum positions.
The Certificate Requirements can be found on the Catalog.
To be admitted to the undergraduate certificate, students must have:
- An overall GPA of at least 2.00
- Satisfactorily complete at least two-thirds of the most recent 30 semester credits attempted
Certificate Application
This certificate is not eligible for financial aid. The current tuition rates, certificate application and more are found on this One Stop page--Certificates.
Contact the program director, David Woodward, for more information.
To maintain and further enhance the quality of our instruction, the Museum Studies program will compile, discuss, and assess data each year for the purposes of:
- Modifications to the program
- Position and funding requests
- Faculty and programmatic development
To that end, the Museum Studies program has itentified the following direct and indirect measures:
Four Program Learning Outcomes (PLOs) that map to the Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) identified as the core components of UMD's Assessment of Student Learning program. They are:
- SLO 1: Learners will interpret culture through objects as records of behavior, actions and values.
- SLO 2: Learners will accurately analyze the mission, visions and functions of public collections.
- SLO 3: Learners will appropriately apply tools required to further the field and expand possibilities for public interaction with culture.
- SLO 4: Learners will develop and sustain rhetoric with societies through advancement of standards for public collections and interpretations.
Measures for each PLO are determined according to an assessment rubric created for each category. All Museum Studies students are assessed in multiple required courses. The specific assignments used to measure student performance on each PLO are determined by individual faculty.
We consider a PLO met by our program if all students who have completed the assigned coursework are scored as “Proficient” or higher on the rubrics for each category. Faculty will have ongoing discussions regarding the standards for each assessment level. We will strengthen our standards if too many students are judged as “Distinguished” and will review our methods and measures in all courses in the event that students consistently fail to meet “Proficient” in the courses that are being assessed.