Alumna Profile: Stephanie B. F. ('04) in Chicago

Stephanie writes about her experiences after graduating from UE in 2004.

My double major in Art History and Archaeology from UE led to a wealth of opportunities in non-profit, research-oriented work at art museums and libraries. Following my graduation from UE in 2004, I entered the graduate program in Art History at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. I completed the MA in 2007 and was awarded an academic year internship at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC for the 2007-2008 academic year. At the National Gallery, I worked in the Department of Image Collections, part of the institution’s art library, and the Adult Education department, the branch of the Department of Education that managed lectures, organized study weekends, and coordinated the museum’s highly competitive fellowship and internship programs. Upon completing my internship, I worked as a graduate intern in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago and then obtained a job there as a visual resources cataloger in the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, a position that built on my work in Image Collections at the National Gallery.

Today, I am Program Assistant and Spotlight Exhibitions Coordinator at the Newberry Library, a research library whose vast collections of books, manuscripts, genealogical materials, and maps focus on early modern Europe, the Americas, and the Midwest. I am half of a two-person department that manages the Library’s public lecture schedule, runs an adult education program that offers over 150 seminars each year, and oversees the Library’s two exhibit galleries. As Spotlight Exhibition Coordinator, I manage the production, installation, and de-installation of our ongoing Spotlight Exhibition series, working together with curators and conservators to produce focused exhibits that highlight treasures from the Newberry’s collections. I am also enrolled in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Dominican University and will earn my MLIS degree in 2013, with a specialty in academic libraries, particularly art libraries, and archives. This degree will build on my work at the National Gallery, the Art Institute, and the Newberry and will complement my MA in Art History. In the next five years, I hope to gain more experience working in art libraries or archives and plan to pursue a PhD in Italian art and architectural history.