Elizabeth Wood

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Memory and Identity on Display in a “Family Museum”: A Video Poster
(Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2014-04-11) Wood, Elizabeth; Peterson, Erik
The things we save of our everyday lives are not always considered “museum pieces,” but these items often find their ways into meaningful displays throughout the home. These objects become expressions of identity and memory. In Art as Experience, Dewey (1934), comments on the role of expressive objects as the tangible things of the world which represent meaning and experience. These objects are not simply mementoes or souvenirs of things past, but rather, emotional conduits that integrate and unify the sense of self; things from the past “become co-efficients in new adventures and put on a raiment of fresh meaning” (Dewey, 1934, p. 60). We are surrounded by these objects in all aspects of our lives, but it is not until they are assembled, or collected, in one place that the value and significance of these objects becomes clear. Vernacular museums, those which are set in “non-museum spaces,” are places that demonstrate a “connectedness between consumption, history, individuality, and place… [and which] allow people to discuss heritage without breaking from daily activities” (Gordon, 2012, p. 76).These settings provide an opportunity for exploration of stories of the past. A particular form of vernacular museum, what is best described as a “family museum,” represents a unique perspective on the meaning of objects as they interconnect with family and community history. The interdisciplinary approach to this study of material culture, experience, and family history encompasses a humanities research approach--posing questions about common assumptions, uncovering new meanings in the artifacts of human life, and finding new ways to understand cultural interactions. For this study in particular, the objects on display in the family museum and the way that they are displayed become a locus for the study of human experience. The poster presentation uses digital storytelling techniques to examine “The Loft,” a part of the Pierce Homestead in Mount Desert, ME, a family museum representing the collective material history of five generations of an American family. Digital storytelling is an emergent practice that incorporates traditional narratives with digital imagery, text, audio and video. Burgess (2006) suggests that the strategies of digital storytelling are fundamentally community oriented and represent “a field of cultural practice: a dynamic site of relations between textual arrangements and symbolic conventions, technologies for production and conventions for their use; and collaborative social interaction that takes place in local and specific contexts” (p.7). The opportunity to study and document vernacular museums like The Loft provides an important avenue for better understanding the personal connections that museums can build between visitors and objects, as well as ways memory, identity and sense of family. Each of thee artifacts in The Lof is a possession of the family as a whole, and “take their value from their association to events that are constitutive of the person or of the family history” (Marcoux, 2001, p. 72). Members of the family can point to and interpret their life events of the time, and connect this to the history and continuity of the family and community context, all through their relationship to the artifacts in The Loft. References Burgess, Jean (2006) Hearing Ordinary Voices: Cultural Studies, Vernacular Creativity and Digital Storytelling. Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 20(2):pp. 201-214. Dewey, J. (1934). Art as experience. New York: Perigree Books. Gordon, T.S. (2011). Private history in public exhibition and the settings of everyday life. Lanham, MD: AltaMira. Marcoux, J-S. (2001). The refurbishment of memory. In D. Miller (Ed.)., Home possessions: Material culture behind closed doors (pp. 69-86). Oxford, England: Berg.
EFFECTS OF HUMAN-ORANGUTAN COOPERATION AT THE INDIANAPOLIS ZOO
(Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2012-04-13) Riefler, Don; Hetrick, Erin M.; Libby, Chelsea; Wood, Elizabeth
The Indianapolis Zoo is in the process of developing a new orangutan ex-hibit. The exhibit aims to help zoo guests develop an appreciation for the cognitive abilities of orangutans as well as understand how those abilities have helped the animals survive in the forest. The goals of the experience are to ultimately affect zoo guests’ attitudes and beliefs about orangutans and the importance of forest conservation. To that end, the zoo will be im-plementing interactive devices that allow orangutans living in the exhibit and zoo guests to work cooperatively on a series of discrete, individualized tasks. In the summer of 2011, IUPUI Museum Studies graduate students con-ducted visitor studies research and evaluation on a Chutes Interactive proto-type. The prototype invited research participants to cooperate with an orangutan by taking turns with the animal to rotate a series of chambers. With each rotation, a treat moved from the top of the device to a bottom chute, where the ape could retrieve it. Researchers used questionnaires, meaning mapping, and direct observa-tion methods to measure: 1) the extent of guest interaction at the device, 2) gains in general content knowledge/conceptual that occurred after the expe-rience, and 3) prototype functionality with regard to the exhibit goals and mechanics. Evaluation of the experience revealed that the cooperative expe-rience stimulated little long-term change in participant attitudes and behav-iors toward orangutans; that participants showed cognitive gain after the prototype activity, but not in knowledge areas identified as the core goals of the experience; and that design elements should be reconsidered to ensure the device would function properly more often.
Public Scholarship at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
(2016-06) Wood, Elizabeth; Hong, Youngbok; Price, Mary F.; Stanton-Nichols, Kathleen; Hatcher, Julie A.; Craig, David M.; Kelly, Jason M.; Silverman, Ross D.; Palmer, Kristi L.
Community engagement is a defining attribute of the campus, and the current Strategic Plan identifies a number of strategic actions to “Deepen our Commitment to Community Engagement.” In May 2015, A Faculty Learning Community (FLC) on Public Scholarship was established in May, 2015 to address the campus strategic goals to “recognize and reward contributions to community engagement” and “define community engagement work…in Faculty Annual Reports and promotion and tenure guidelines.” At IUPUI, scholarly work occurs in research and creative activity, teaching, and/or service. In terms of promotion and tenure, faculty members must declare an area of excellence in one of these three domains. The FLC on Public Scholarship is a 3-year initiative co-sponsored by Academic Affairs and the Center for Service and Learning (CSL). Seven faculty members from across campus were selected to be part of the 2015-2016 FLC, and two co-chairs worked closely with CSL staff to plan and facilitate the ongoing work. The FLC is charged with defining public scholarship, identifying criteria to evaluate this type of scholarship, assist faculty in documenting their community-engaged work, and working with department Chairs and Deans in adapting criteria into promotion and tenure materials. The intended audiences for this work includes faculty, community-engaged scholars, public scholars, promotion and tenure committees, external reviewers, and department Chairs and Deans. The following provides background to the campus context and a brief summary of work to date, including definition and proposed criteria to evaluate public scholarship.
Defining the Scope of Your Evaluation
(Taylor & Francis, 2015) Wood, Elizabeth; Museum Studies Program, School of Liberal Arts
One challenge of conducting evaluations is finding the right questions to guide the work. A clear purpose for a study gives the evaluator a good sense of what information can answer the questions, and helps frame the scope of the project as a whole. Knowing the scope of the evaluation project provides a sense of the resources needed. A common pitfall for those getting started with evaluation is trying to carry out a project before thinking about the overall purpose of the evaluation. This article provides a brief overview of defining clear and concise evaluation questions and thinking about the overall scope of an evaluation project. Examples include questions and strategies used in small, medium, and large-scale studies.
Integrating Scaffolding Experiences for the Youngest Visitors in Museums
(Taylor & Francis, 2012) Wolf, Barbara; Wood, Elizabeth; Museum Studies Program, School of Liberal Arts
Research demonstrates that children have vast potential to expand their knowledge base with simple supports from adults and older children. Children's museums have a heightened awareness of the value in and the need to reach out to support adults accompanying children, thus bringing about an emphasis on family learning. Iterative exhibition studies conducted at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis illustrate the impact of planning for family learning. But for any museum, intentionally applying the strategy of scaffolding by building on simple concepts and working toward mastery of ideas, can inform adults and simultaneously help children stretch to new levels of understanding and achievement. This strategy requires curators, educators and exhibit developers to work collaboratively to determine various levels of accessibility of content and activity moving from entry level ideas through more complex and abstract ones for older children and adults. Children visiting museums of all types is certainly nothing new, but their experience in those spaces has changed over time. From the earliest iterations of children's museums, to contemporary practices in museums of all types, the attention museum professionals place on the needs of this special audience is changing. The idea of hands-on learning, facilitated and mediated learning experiences, and scaled-down environments have become more prominent (and often expected) in museum settings where young children visit with their families. The increased visitation of family groups, especially those with young children, requires greater attention by museum educators, exhibition developers, and designers to support the learning needs of this audience. Most children's museums place special emphasis on designing environments that support learning for very young children. Lessons learned from the work done in children's museums can provide models for those in other museum settings to meet the needs of early learners.
Growing FLORES for the Museum
(2016) Wood, Elizabeth; Zemanek, Alysha; Weiss, Laura; Carron, Christian G.; Museum Studies Program, School of Liberal Arts
The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, founded in 1925, is one of few children's museums with a substantial collection. The changing needs of family audiences, and the museum's shift in direction toward a family learning mission, began to raise several questions for the collections and curatorial staff regarding the selection of objects that would hold the greatest potential for use with family audiences. The questions led to the development of the Family Learning Object Rating and Evaluation System (FLORES). This case study describes the development of the rating instrument and strategies the team took to fine-tune its use through input from curators and museum visitor preferences. By drawing on inherent object qualities as well as visitor preferences, museums can find ways to better understand the visitor-object relationship and in turn move toward more intentional selection and inclusion of objects in exhibition planning.
Defining the Chaperone’s Role as Escort, Educator or Parent
(Taylor & Francis, 2010) Wood, Elizabeth; Museum Studies Program, School of Liberal Arts
The concept of family learning in museums emphasizes the interaction between related adults and children through the process of free-choice learning. The complexity of family learning in the context of school visits presents new questions for museum staff on the role of chaperones and the extent to which chaperone-led groups might function as family units. Do chaperones operate as escorts, educators, or parents on a museum field trip? This article provides a brief overview of existing field trip and chaperone research findings, raises some critical questions on the role of parents as chaperones, and describes the results from a study on chaperone behavior in the museum. Results from observations of 289 chaperones in a children's museum setting suggest that chaperone behavior is not necessarily influenced by exhibition context, but parents and chaperones do differ in preferred family learning interactions with children in museum exhibitions.
‘I just don’t ever use that word’: investigating stakeholders’ understanding of heritage
(Taylor & Francis, 2017) Kryder-Reid, Elizabeth; Foutz, Jeremy W.; Wood, Elizabeth; Zimmerman, Larry J.; Anthropology, School of Liberal Arts
Understanding the value of heritage sites for diverse stakeholders requires both paying attention to the fields of power in which the sites operate and applying methodologies that are open to user-defined paradigms of value. In the U.S., official discourse often frames the value of heritage sites associated the deep Native American past as archaeological sites, an interpretation that is consistent with settler colonial ideologies. This narrative generally obfuscates connections between the heritage of the sites and contemporary peoples, and it effaces the history of colonialism and dispossession. A study of stakeholder-defined heritage at two contested sites in the central Midwest revealed both congruencies and conflicts among diverse constituencies’ articulations of the sites’ value. At Mounds State Park a proposed dam and reservoir ‘Mounds Lake’ project would inundate a large portion of the site. At Strawtown Koteewi, Native American tribes have made repatriation claims under the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).The study also problematised the term ‘cultural heritage’ as it is understood and used by the different constituencies, particularly for culturally and historically affiliated Native Americans. It also highlighted the positions of the constituencies within the broader fields of power implicated in these contested sites.
Talking Points on Publicly Engaged Scholarship at IUPUI
(2018-02-02) Wood, E.; Price, Mary F.; Hatcher, Julie A.; Stanton-Nichols, K.; Haberski, R.; Palmer, Kristi L.; Goodlett, Charles; Hong, Young-bok; Silverman, Ross D.
Talking Points on Publicly Engaged Scholarship at IUPUI Informed by Public Scholarship at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, a concept paper written by the Faculty Learning Community (FLC) on Public Scholarship and refined through ongoing FLC work between 2015-18 in collaboration with faculty across the campus and with nationally-recognized scholars.
Strategies for Developing and Documenting Products of Public Scholarship in Research and Creative Activity
(IUPUI, 2018-11-28) Wood, E.; Price, M.F.; Stanton-Nichols, K.; Hatcher, J.A.; Hong, Y.B.; Haberski, R; Silverman, R.; Goodlett, C; Palmer, K.
This document builds on the IUPUI Concept Paper on Public Scholarship and provides a planning and documentation tool to aid faculty in preparing their dossier for promotion and tenure. Candidates can use this document to aid in their planning and gathering of evidence. Primary and unit committees can use this guidance in mentoring junior colleagues. The specific guidance in this document focuses on planning for and documenting their public and community-engaged scholarship as research and creative activity as is adapted from prior work by Jordan (2007).

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