Ever since the Ashmolean opened in 1683, complete with an experimental laboratory in the basement, the Museum's collections and keepers have played a vital role in the Oxford curriculum. Today, Ashmolean curators supervise doctoral research, convene seminars, give lectures, and teach classes and courses for the undergraduate and masters degrees.
For over ten years, the Ashmolean, funded by the Andrew W Mellon Foundation, reimagined the Museum as a resource for academic engagement at Oxford and beyond. Classes, courses and cross-disciplinary partnerships have broadened the range of subjects regularly employing object-centred learning in the Museum to include, for example, Medieval and Modern Languages, Geography, History, Tibetan Studies, Mathematics, Anthropology, Medicine, Business and English Literature. Programmes like the Faculty Fellowships have brought fresh faculty thinking to bear on the collections. Eloquent Things and Krasis helped early-career scholars to develop their skills in object-based teaching and learning, whilst Our Museum Our Voices opened the Museum to new interpretations.
We will be spending the next few months building a new programme of University and Academic Engagement, based on the successes of the last ten years, and will announce opportunities to get involved in Hilary Term 2024.
