MSTD 215 DE - Collections Management: Legal and Ethical Issues – This course introduces students to the basic legal and ethical issues faced by museum staff entrusted with stewardship obligations for collections. The course situates museums in the nonprofit sector and examines the legal duties and ethical obligations placed on those who manage museums and their collections relative to standard museum operations, including acquisitions, deaccessions, and loans etc. (Fall) Professors Malaro and DeAngelis (3-credits)
MSTD 216 DE - Collections Management: Practical Applications - The goal of this course is to examine the fundamental principles and practices of "collection management" in modern museums by providing opportunities for students to see how they are applied. Pre-requisite MSTD 215DE, (Spring) Prof. Humphrey (3-credits)
MSTD 232 DE - Preventive Conservation: Philosophy and Theory - This course examines the history of preventive conservation in museums, ethics that govern the conservation profession, interactions of materials and agents of deterioration that threaten collections, condition documentation, and an introduction to risk assessments and risk mitigation strategies (Summer) Prof. Coughlin (3-credits)
MSTD 233 DE - Preventive Conservation: Practical Applications - This course examines the practical applications of preventive conservation in museums including environmental monitoring methods; conducting various types of risk assessments; developing plans, policies, and procedures to facilitate collections care; and preparing grant proposals for collections care initiatives.(Fall) Prof. Coughlin (3-credits)
The goal of all the courses is to provide students access to the faculty as much as possible in an on-line environment.
Mary Coughlin
Mary Coughlin is the Distance Education Administrator. Professor Coughlin is also the Primary Instructor for the Preventive Conservation: Philosophy and Theory and the Preventive Conservation: Practical Applications courses.
Professor Coughlin is a 2005 graduate of the University of Delaware Winterthur Program in Art Conservation where she specialized in Objects Conservation. She is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Mary Washington University with a BA in Historic Preservation. Beginning as a graduate intern in the Objects Laboratory at the National Museum of American History (NMAH), Professor Coughlin has also served as a Samuel H. Kress Fellow, a Smithsonian Postgraduate Conservation Fellow, and most recently as an Objects Conservator, all at NMAH. She also interned at English Heritage in London and the National Park Service’s Textile and Objects Laboratories in Harper’s Ferry. While at NMAH, Professor Coughlin conserved objects as diverse as FDR’s leg braces to Star War’s C-3PO. Professor Coughlin has given conference presentation and published articles on the conservation challenges of contemporary museum collections, particularly with respect to plastic. She currently sits on the Board of Directors, Washington Conservation Guild. Professor Coughlin has taught conservation classes in the Museum Studies Program since 2006, both on campus and through our Distance Education Museum Collections Management and Care Certificate program. Her duties include the administration of the Program’s Distance Education certificate.
Ildiko P. DeAngelis
Professor DeAngelis is Associate Professor Emeritus of Museum Studies. She taught the on-campus Collections Management: Legal and Ethical course at GW from 1997-2007. Prior to joining GW, Professor DeAngelis was primary legal advisor on collections issues to the Smithsonian museums for more than a decade. She has published and taught numerous workshops on legal/ethical topics relevant to museum operations, including stolen art, old loans, tax implications of gifts, information laws, and appraisals.
She has served for many years on the Steering Committee and as faculty of the American Law Institute/American Bar Association annual course of study, Legal Problems of Museum Administration. In addition to a law degree (1980 magna cum laude) from American University, Professor DeAngelis holds a Certificate in Museum Administration (1976) from the Smithsonian, a Master of Arts in Art History (1974) and gained practical collections management experience as a contract registrar at the National Collection of Fine Arts (1976) (now know as the Smithsonian American Art Museum). She serves as the co-instructor for the Collections Management: Legal and Ethical Issues course.
Johanna Humphrey
Johanna Humphrey is the Primary Instructor for Collections Management: Practical Applications. Professor Humphrey was also a co-instructor of the campus-based Collections Management course and taught the GW Anthropology Department’s course Anthropology in the Museum at the Smithsonian for four years. She has presented papers, published articles and led workshops for the AAM, MAAM, AMM, Museum Computer Network and The Museum Documentation Association (UK) and recently retired after twenty-seven years as Collections Documentation Manager for the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. She is an alumna of GW’s Anthropology Department.
Marie C. Malaro
Professor Emerita Marie Malaro is the lead lecturer and co-instructor of the Collections Management: Legal and Ethical Issues course. Professor Malaro is a nationally known expert on law and ethics of collections management and wrote the pivotal Legal Primer on Managing Museum Collections (Smithsonian Press 2nd ed. 1998), which is the primary resource on this topic in the museum field and which serves as the basic textbook for the course. Professor Malaro first developed the classroom version of this course while still serving as an attorney for the Smithsonian Institution. Later she served as Professor and the Director of the GW Museum Studies Program until 1997. She has come out of retirement to teach this on-line version. Most recently, Professor Malaro was chosen as a Centennial Honoree by the American Association of Museums as one of one hundred individuals who have made the most significant contributions to the museum profession in the last 100 years.
Graduate-level courses in collections management care were translated for on-line instruction.
Lectures and videos feature leading experts in the field.
Classes feature professional standards, ethics and best practices in the field of collections management and care.