What Museums Want, Queensborough's Gallery and Museum Students Have
“It was a mystical experience handling artifacts in the African art collection,” said Queen Hall, who participated in the QCC Art Gallery internship this past summer. “I could feel the life, the essence of the person who created the piece. When I was younger, I was fearful of African deities but now, I understand the cross-cultural connection between content and diaspora.”
Queen is a full-time, second semester student in the Gallery & Museum Studies (GMS) program. Her journey to CUNY and to Queensborough started in high school where she attended College Now, an opportunity to experience college life by making it possible for students to take college preparatory and college-level courses. Through those courses, Queen discovered her interests in African American Studies, and Cultural Anthropology.
“To hold an African mask is to contemplate history,” said Katherine Chen, a GMS major in her final semester, who interned at the QCC Art Gallery in the summer of 2023 and spring of 2024. “The faces, the thick raffia collars, the animal imagery—you know you are a part of something special—something art students at other colleges do not have access to.” She emphasized that there was a lot more to these internships than gazing at art pieces. “I participated in the curatorial and exhibition design but just as fascinating was listening to and learning from Faustino Quintanilla and other experts in the field.”
“Their experiences are exactly what we want for all our internship students,” said Kat Griefen, Program Coordinator and Faculty Member, Gallery and Museum Studies, Art & Design Department, Queensborough, and Faculty Member, Museum Studies MA Program, CUNY School of Professional Studies.
Griefen pointed out that these internships are extraordinarily successful in helping students transition out into the field. In fact, a 2022 survey of students who participated in and graduated from the GMS program found that 94.7% of participants have gone on to continue their studies in related BA programs and/or work in museums, galleries, or related cultural institutions.
“I learned about the expansiveness of the art world through the program. Queensborough was my starting point to prepare for a career in such a competitive field,” said Angelica Pomar, ‘19, a full-time Assistant Educator, Artist Programs, at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA).
“Queensborough offers the only affordable early academic entry point into the museum field in New York City,” said Griefen. “What museums want, our students have in the way of knowledge, practical experience, and the diversity that Queensborough nurtures and is renowned for throughout the region and the country.”
And, as with many community college students, Queens’ story is one of endurance and self-discovery.
Queen resides in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Her commute to Queensborough, including trains and buses, is two hours each way. When not at school, she travels to her part-time job at Posman Books in Manhattan.
“There are many career choices as a GMS major and that led me to museum conservation. I am eager to participate in more internships which will allow me a peek into the business side of galleries and museums.”
Angelica, who just marked her one-year anniversary at MOMA, is an employee in the public engagement team in the education department, specifically, programming in the Creativity Lab, collaborating with artists and community partners on project topics and displays.
Angelica was a curatorial fellow at the Kupferberg Holocaust Center (KHC) at Queensborough where she worked with Kat Griefen and Danyelle Means (Oglala Lakota) on the exhibition, Survivance and Sovereignty on Turtle Island: Engaging with Contemporary Native American Art in the spring-fall of 2018. Angelica also participated in GMS program internships at SoHo 20 Art Gallery in Brooklyn and the Museum of Art and Design (MAD) in Manhattan. The internships at MAD were planned through a partnership spearheaded by Carla Hernandez, a member of the Advisory Board of the QCC GMS program and a registrar at MAD at the time. Angelica’s internship at MAD working with Adult Audiences turned into a part-time position at the museum where she worked for two and a half years.
“This year the Gallery and Museum Studies program launched a new Career Shadowing Program with support from the CUNY Career Success Fellows Program. Our first Career Shadowing museum partner was MAD with whom we have had a long-standing relationship,” said Griefen. “Half of our students who have interned at MAD have gone on to jobs at that institution which is one of the main goals of the program.”
Angelica earned a bachelor's degree in art history and museum professions from the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in 2021. She is pursuing her master’s degree at Hunter College in art history. “I want to pursue teaching and continue working with artists to make projects come to life.”
Katherine Chen, who was the first student to participate in the Career Shadowing Program at MAD enrolled at Queensborough in 2022 as a graphic design major and a year later transferred to GMS program through Professor Wentrack, Chair of the Art Department.
She interned at the QCC Art Gallery—assisting with wall-mounting of the European Masters exhibit, learning to handle sculpture and other art pieces—storing African artwork, and digitizing collections of historical photographs.
“My dream is to own a gallery that can be a steppingstone for minority artists who need support getting their work out there.”
Students apply to internships with guidance from Kat Griefen, the Program Coordinator for the Gallery and Museum Studies degree. The Career Services office is also integrally involved and has been conducting specialized workshops in Griefen’s “Intro to Gallery and Museum Studies” course every semester to support students in developing their resumes and cover letters. Griefen is also part of the CUNY Career Success Fellows program that is dedicated to supporting students towards career success.
See https://www.cuny.edu/about/administration/offices/transformation/careers-across-disciplines/
The Gallery and Museum Studies program is among the only A.S. or B.A. programs in its field that require two internships to graduate, so that students who graduate are uniquely qualified for entry into the job market in their field
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