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ACADEMIC ENGAGEMENT

The Ashmolean is first and foremost a University museum.

We are committed to making our collections and expertise accessible for academic engagement at Oxford and in partnership with universities worldwide. The Museum is a world-class resource to enrich all kinds of intellectual enquiry, and our curators' scholarship contributes to teaching throughout the Oxford curriculum. 

THE ASHMOLEAN AND UNIVERSITY TEACHING

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.

In 2012, the Ashmolean University Engagement Programme, generously funded by the Andrew W Mellon Foundation, began to re-imagine the Ashmolean's potential as a resource for academic engagement at Oxford and beyond.

Since then, new classes, new courses and new 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.

As well as enhancing the degree programmes of Oxford students, these collaborations also offer the chance for their teachers to engage more deeply with the products of material and visual culture and the Ashmolean has become a key centre for faculty members and early-career scholars to develop their skills in object-based teaching and learning.

WHO WE ARE

Academic Engagement programmes at the Ashmolean are led by the Andrew W Mellon Teaching Curator, Dr Jim Harris.

We're sad to be bidding farewell to Gemma Plumpton our Administration Assistant for Teaching, who will shortly be leaving us to begin PhD research - but delighted to offer an opportunity to a new team member.  The Admin Assistant is the first port of call for faculty members wanting to explore the possibility of working with the Museum and provides administrative support for all our academic enagement and teaching programmes across the museum.  Click here for details of the post.  Applications close at 5pm, Friday August 23rd.

Ben Skarratt and Michalina Szymanska our Collections Assistants, who have been responsible, amongst many other things, for preparing objects for classes, workshops and research visits are also moving on this summer, to more senior collections management posts here at the Ashmolean and the Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow.  Congratulations to them.  We'll be making an announcement about our new Collections Assistant very soon.

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