The Wake Forest Museum of Anthropology (MOA) is one of 13 local attractions participating in the second annual Forsyth Photo Adventure contest. Residents can enter to win the grand prize of a $250 VISA gift card by visiting any or all of the participating attractions and taking photos now through July 4.

“There are a lot of great places to visit in our area. We’re encouraging people to visit these family-friendly attractions where you can learn, play, and just get out and enjoy what Forsyth County has to offer,” said MOA staff member Sara Cromwell, who is also president of the Association of Visitor Attractions of Forsyth County (AVA), sponsor of the contest.

To enter, visitors must post their photos to each attraction’s Facebook page. Entrants will be qualified to win individual prize packs awarded by each attraction, as well as the grand prize of the VISA gift card.  Each attraction will select their winner as the photo judged to best show “fun” at that attraction.

The Museum of Anthropology will award a MOA Friends family membership to its winner.  The Forsyth Photo Adventure’s $250 winner will be randomly selected from the names of all official entrants posting at any of the attractions. “The more sites at which you post, the better your chances are to win the gift card,” Cromwell said. In all, 13 prize packs will be awarded in addition to the selecting of a grand prize gift card-winning entry. Continue reading »

Tina Smith, the museum educator at Wake Forest’s Museum of Anthropology, was recently featured in an article in the Mt. Airy News. The article highlighted the curriculum for eight-graders at Central Middle School in Pilot Mountain, N.C. Smith helped judge projects by students who worked to design portable exhibits that explained the Holocaust to 4- and 5-year-olds.

Read more about Smith and the program »

Sara Cromwell (left) accepts the award.

The Wake Forest Museum of Anthropology (MOA) received a North Carolina Museums Council (NCMC) Award of Excellence for website design during the NCMC Annual Meeting in Raleigh. NCMC Awards of Excellence recognize, encourage and promote outstanding achievement in the museum community across the state.

The Museum of Anthropology was recognized for its new website, http://moa.wfu.edu, which was introduced to the public in May 2012. Museum staff, working closely with Wake Forest’s Office of Communications and External Relations (CER), created the site.

“We are greatly indebted to CER for their technical knowledge and design skills which made it possible for us to complete this project,” said Sara Cromwell, the PR, Marketing and Membership Coordinator.

The website has a number of new features:

• An “Artifact of the Month” feature highlights the breadth and depth of the Museum’s collections.
• A “Plans and Policies” section provides the general public with insight into the Museum’s operations and museum professionals with sample documents.
• Downloadable curriculum standards and outreach kit inventories for K-12 teachers.
• Downloadable versions of exhibit scavenger hunts for teachers and parents.
• Downloadable examples of how Wake Forest professors use the Museum in their teaching.
• An interactive Google map of the Museum’s location.

The Museum of Anthropology is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Admission is free.

The North Carolina Museums Council’s mission is to enhance public education by improving the administrative, interpretive and collections practices of museums, historic sites, science centers and related facilities in North Carolina; and to stimulate public support for the work performed by these facilities. This is the North Carolina Museums Council’s 50^th year of providing a unified voice for museums and museum professionals in North Carolina.

Kyle Elizabeth Bryner, the registrar and collections manager at the Wake Forest University Museum of Anthropology, was one of two recipients of the “Emerging Museum Professionals Award” from the Southeastern Museums Conference.

The Emerging Museum Professionals Award, initiated in 2007, recognizes emerging professionals who have demonstrated excellence and leadership in museum activities at their institutions, within the museum profession as a whole and especially in the southeast region.

Bryner was nominated by museum director Stephen Whittington. North Carolina Museums Council President Lindsey Lambert and North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources Chief of Collections Management LeRae Umfleet submitted letters of support.

The award was presented during the Southeastern Museums Conference 2012 Annual Meeting in Williamsburg, Va., on November 8.

The Wake Forest Museum of Anthropology received the inaugural “Award for Collection Preservation Excellence” from the North Carolina Preservation Consortium (NCPC) during the NCPC’s annual conference.

The award honors those committed to collections preservation and is intended to raise public awareness of the organizational and philanthropic funding so vital for preservation resources.

After a decade of sustained effort, the Museum of Anthropology has a fully inventoried collection, a collections management plan, a long-range conservation plan, an emergency response plan, and a collections storage facility equipped with climate control, fire detection and suppression systems, artifact mounts and compact shelving.

LeRae Umfleet, chief of collections management for the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, and her “Connecting to Collections” project team members Adrienne Berney and Matt Hunt, nominated the Museum of Anthropology for the award.

They praised director Stephen Whittington for his vision and dedication to improve the museum’s preservation program.

“This award is affirmation of two things by our peers: the museum staff’s commitment to exceed professional standards for care of collections and the University administration’s decision to preserve important collections like the museum’s in an off-site storage facility,” said Whittington.

Registrar and Collections manager Kyle Elizabeth Bryner was commended for her role in the implementation of best practices. Sara Cromwell, public relations, marketing and membership coordinator, was also recognized for her contributions to preservation fundraising.

Continue reading »

The eighth annual Artisans’ Fair will be held Tuesday, Dec. 4. The event will run from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. in Benson 401. Leading up to the event, Inside WFU is profiling some of the artists. Continue reading »

Mitra

Communication professor Ananda Mitra and Wake Forest documentary film student Kim Dryden presented at the International Association for Research on Service-learning and Community Engagement Conference last month in Baltimore, Md.

Faculty, administrators and students from colleges nationwide attended the conference.

Mitra shared information on planning international service-learning trips and preparing students to get the most of their study abroad experience. The talk included ideas for preparing students for immersion into another culture before the trip, responding to cultural and environmental experiences while abroad, and documenting the student experience after the trip.

For two years, Mitra has offered a six-week undergraduate summer study abroad course entitled “Culture and Communication in India: Sustainability vs. Globalization.” The class includes an optional student-developed Wake the Himalayas Service Learning and Community Engagement program supporting education in the Himalayan town of Leh. Students work with community partners, teach classes, engage in social and sports activities with the children and write reflection journals.

Dryden, a 2013 MFA candidate, traveled with Mitra’s group this past summer to produce, “Immersed in India,” a film documenting the journeys of the students in Mitra’s summer abroad course. Continue reading »

Steve Whittington

Museum of Anthropology educator Tina Smith, Education chair Mary Lynn Redmond and MOA director Stephen Whittington presented “Linking Cultures and Languages through Visual Learning” at the Visual Learning: Transforming the Liberal Arts conference held at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn.

The presentation focused on the value of the MOA’s databases for teaching a variety of subjects, from K-12 social studies to undergraduate foreign languages.

Visual Learning: Transforming the Liberal Arts offered visionary lectures and speculative conversations, as well as hands-on sessions highlighting successful assignments, faculty-staff partnerships, exhibitions, and performances. Stretching over two days, the conference — held in the Weitz Center for Creativity, Carleton’s new center for interdisciplinary arts collaboration — addressed topics ranging from the theoretical to the practical.

Museum of Anthropology director Stephen L. Whittington was one of 32 Fellows from academic museums and galleries across the nation to complete the first Summer Leadership Institute organized by the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University on June 25-29.

An AAMG scholarship and College faculty development funds donated by Mr. and Mrs. Dickerson Wright Supported his attendance.

Cromwell

Bryner

Museum of Anthropology staff members Sara Cromwell and Kyle Elizabeth Bryner presented a session on “Creative Conservation Funding” at the March 17-19 annual meeting of the North Carolina Museums Council in Asheville.

Cromwell is the public relations, marketing and membership coordinator for the MOA, and Kyle is the registrar and collections manager. The session highlighted their successful fundraising campaigns on behalf of MOA’s collections and was featured on the North Carolina Connecting to Collections blog, an outreach program of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources.