Alumni Jobs - Museums and Galleries

This post begins a series with information about positions that department alumni hold in many different fields. 

 

This first one is about a 2002 alumna who is now employed at a museum in Illinois.

 

 

 

 

Candace Summers graduated in 2002 with a BA in Archaeology and minors in History and Art History. She worked at Angel Mounds State Historic Site for a year and then went to grad school at Illinois State University in Normal, IL. She received her MA in History in 2006. During that time Candace was the Public Programs Intern at the McLean County Museum of History in Bloomington, IL. While working on her MA (and after completing an internship), Candace started working part time at the Museum as the Sunday Coordinator and Assistant Educator in the fall of 2005. In Jun 2006 she was hired full time as the Education Program Coordinator and then was promoted to Director of Education in September 2007 and has served in that capacity ever  since.

 

Most of the educational programs that come out of the Museum go through Candace’s department. From school programs at the Museum, exhibit programs, the annual History Careers Day Camp in the summer (which features a whole day about Archaeology!) to outreach in the community, her department helps to educate about 14,000 people of all ages per year. Their mid-size museum focuses on Illinois and McLean County, IL history. They have 15 full and part-time employees and over 240 volunteers. Their signature event, dear to Candace’s heart, is their Evergreen Cemetery Walk, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2014!

Check out their website (and like them on Facebook) to learn more about this fabulous institution: www.mchistory.org

The picture here is of Candace during History Careers Day Camp in 2014. Each day of the camp (5 days long) features a different career using the field of History. She is giving a group of campers a behind-the-scenes tour of her Museum (this photo is from the Small Artifact Storage room) during Museum Studies day. 

 

The History Careers Day Camp is entering its 12^th and Candace is very proud to say that she has been helping students learn about careers in the field of history for 11 of those 12 years.