Hello everyone! For this weeks posting, I wanted to talk about my current internship. I am working with the Everhart Museum of Natural History, Science and Art in their programs and events department. This amazing opportunity came my way after I had applied to be an intern for their summer camp program. Due to the global pandemic, this caused for the internship program to become completely remote. This has caused for a lot of change in regards to what I assumed I was initially going to do for the museum, but I am still passionate and eager to learn more. I will be supporting the development and management of virtual programs and events at the Museum.  I will be learning skills in the areas of non-profit administration, research and development of digital programs and events, and event budgeting and execution.

The internship itself consists of several meeting each week which are conducted through Google Hangout. Every Tuesday morning I have a weekly check-in with my department head, Stefanie. She and I speak about my goals and projects for the upcoming week. This is a good time to ask questions or to brainstorm ideas off one another. I am grateful to be working with someone who is passionate about the work they do. after the check-in, we all then have a weekly intern check-in with all interns and their department heads. This meeting allows for interns to connect with one another and talk about their individual projects. This is a great opportunity to get to know one another as well as work on projects together that have some overlap.

Every Wednesday morning we have a weekly staff meeting. During this meeting we talk about the next upcoming two weeks of social media posting. A lot of our marketing and interaction with patrons has been transitioned completely online. A calendar is then put together by the assistant curator Melanie, who is currently maintaining and updating the calendar with all upcoming events and meetings. Being that the global pandemic is slowing down and businesses are starting to reopen, the Museum is looking to open during the first week of August. With the opening date approaching quickly, the Museum needs to be prepped for the general public and have proper sanitation located throughout the museum. This has been the main topic during this weekly staff meeting. The interns are allowed to sit in on this meeting because it allows them to experience what a real meeting would resemble and what is discussed. I find it to be a great learning tool about how the museum operates.

After the staff meeting, the interns and their department heads have a Brown Bag Lunch. This is essentially a virtual field trip or a lecture that we have on Google Hangout. Every week a new special guest comes on and speaks with us about different aspects of a museums. The first week the assistant curator Melanie, from the Everhart spoke with us about American Realism vs. Social Realism. This presentation had works from the fine arts collection at the Everhart. The virtual field trips are when we have a guests from another facility come on and speak with us about their museum along with a guided virtual tour. We have spoken with Bode Morin who is the director of the Anthracite Heritage Museum, Scranton Iron Furnaces and Eckley Miner’s Village. All of these sites are located in the Northeast region of Pennsylvania. This area had a large immigrant community who worked and lived here. This virtual field trip was very interesting and gave me a deeper appreciation for my local community.

In regards to the museum, its collection developed over the course of the early 1900’s . This consisted of mainly of taxidermy birds and other natural history specimens. Eventually, the collection grew to include pieces of art from artists of local, national, and international renown but the focus did not shift towards fine art until the 1930’s. The Museum was fortunate to have two donors from Scranton, Mr. John Law Robertson and Mrs. Rhetta Church Robertson. The Robertson’s had made a large donation to the museum of the collection which consisted of American Folk Art, African Art, and Oceanic Art. Throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s the collection expanded to Mediterranean, Egyptian, South American Art and Classical paintings.