May 18 is International Museum Day! This year’s theme is “Museums Uniting a Divided World”.
Museums are continuing to evolve, shifting from temples of treasures toward more community-centered spaces for dialogue, learning, and connection. Today we celebrate museums as places for sharing difficult knowledge, unlearning and relearning in respectful ways, and appreciating both the beauty of human creativity and the natural world around us.
Some of the faculty in the Museum Studies MA program contributed these vignettes about their favorite museums:
From Dr. Jason Harris: Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art
Deciding which of the countless museums around the world is your favorite is an exceedingly difficult task. But sharing an incredibly unique and often overlooked hidden treasure is much easier. My favorite lesser-known museum is the Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art. Located in Shawnee, Oklahoma, the museum was founded in 1919 by Father Gregory Gerrer, a Benedictine monk. The Museum’s collection includes Egyptian, Greek, and Roman objects; art from the Renaissance through the early 20th century; and more. The museum provides a cultural connection to countless visitors and shows how incredibly valuable cultural and arts institutions can be for smaller communities. The Mabee-Gerrer also serves a valuable role in promoting art in local schools, hosting classes, workshops, and a juried exhibition for high school students.
For more information, visit https://www.mgmoa.org/.
Dr. Harris and Sophie with their Art of the Walls Gala piece by Jim Vernun.
Dr. Harris’ daughter, Sophie Harris, and her artwork at the MGMOA High School Juried Art Exhibition.
Docent field trip to Tuskahoma to the Choctaw Capitol Museum which is very close to the grounds for their awesome Labor Day weekend celebrations!
From Dr. Laura Phillips: First Americans Museum
My favorite museum in the world is right here in OKC! When I visited the First Americans Museum shortly after I moved to Norman in 2024 I was simply blown away by the attention to detail, their commitment to decolonizing and Indigenizing practices, the depth of ongoing community engagement, the incredible architecture of the building itself and the broader campus with their observatory mound and the powerful ways that the stories of the 39 Nations are shared. I joined their docent volunteer program and recently completed 1 year of service.
For more information, visit https://famok.org/
First Americans Museum, Oklahoma City, OK
Dr. Phillips with fellow docents are recognized at the year of service appreciation event at the First Americans Museum.
