Fostering sustainable university-university museum relationships: a study on the integration of museum collections in Higher Education curricula

Abstract

This study aims to identify conditions which determine the use of museum collections in university level teaching. The contemporary literature on university-museum collaborations in the UK focuses heavily on demonstrating the pedagogical advantages of using objects in teaching, but does little to help others incorporate museum collections into their own curricula. Although pedagogical barriers can play a role in the use of museum collections in teaching, there are other determining conditions which can impact an academic’s decision to pursue such teaching methods. For this study, identified determining conditions were categorized into four themes. These are: Pedagogy, Logistical Limitations, Museum Management Structure, and the Student Response. Four UK-based cases are used for this study. These are: Newcastle University and the Great North Museum: Hancock, University of Manchester and the Manchester Museum, Oxford University and the Ashmolean Museum, and University College London and the UCL Collections. Drawing on qualitative data collected through interviews with academic and museum staff and university student comments from an online survey, this study examines the relationships between the four universities and their university museums, and how these relationships either support or inhibit the use of museum collections in university level teaching. In today’s economy, university museums can no longer financially justify their traditional role of collecting and preserving collections for the sole purposes of academic use and university superfluity. Not only do university museums need to prove their worth to their parent university, but the social impact of university museums is also a hotly contested topic in today’s museum sector with more and more university museums shifting their focus to the public to secure necessary funding. This study argues that this pedagogical shift can cause tensions between the museum and the university, and consequently, hinder the use of museum collections in university curricula. As a result, this study identifies the concepts of awareness and staffing amongst the university and university museum as key areas to reevaluate and prioritize to create more sustainable links and support the use of museum collections in university curricula.