The Denison Museum is a teaching museum with a focus on helping faculty and students integrate objects of historical, cultural, and artistic value into their academic curriculum. The Museum believes that a studied and researched collection is a happy collection. In order to ensure our collection’s happiness, we encourage faculty, students, and scholars alike to use the collection for classroom and scholarly work.

The Museum presents exhibitions and creates tailored class experiences that enhance student learning across the disciplines. Museum staff work closely with faculty members to understand their needs, generate ideas for collaboration, and create unique activities designed to promote specific learning goals. Activities range from casual visits designed to introduce students and faculty to the resources and possibilities offered by the Museum, to collaboratively curated exhibitions and rigorous lesson plans that integrate object-based learning into the core curriculum of a course.

Museum class visits
Museum class visits
Museum class visits
Museum class visits
Museum class visits

Each year, more than a hundred classes from across the college engage with the Museum’s collection and exhibitions, deepening student learning across the disciplines. Regular users include faculty members from the departments of Anthropology & Sociology, Art History & Visual Culture, Data Analytics, Education, Geosciences, Global Health, History, Journalism, Modern Languages, Women’s & Gender Studies, and Studio Art.

For example, Geoscience students learn observational techniques that inform their laboratory work; Spanish students practice their language skills by analyzing objects, writing labels, and making oral presentations; Studio Art students learn about color by examining works of art; sociology students examine Central American Guna textiles as they explore the social dynamics of international development. For quite a few students, this experience marks the first time they’ve ever set foot in a museum.

Fun Fact:

Since 2012, the Museum has hosted 856 class visits & 13,007 students

Object-based learning

Object-based learning (OBL) is an experiential pedagogy that focuses on close, tactile interaction with physical materials (including works of art, cultural artifacts, documents, specimens, etc.) and sensory experiences. As an approach to learning “about, with and through objects,” OBL promotes intellectual discourse and exploration. It prompts inquiry into complex socio-political or scientific issues; it helps cultivate valuable skills in visual literacy, critical thinking, written and oral communication, and teamwork.

A space to reflect and ask questions

The 21st century academic museum is a transformative place that helps visitors see and reflect in new ways on the complex and dynamic world around them. It offers space to wonder, ask questions, think critically, collaborate, and reach in new directions. Far more than just a showcase for fine art or a resource only for students of the visual arts, the contemporary museum is a catalyst for deep inquiry into a wide range of issues, innovative pedagogy, and interdisciplinary collaboration.