As a teaching museum, the Stanley Museum of Art offers University of Iowa students  immersive, interdisciplinary, educational experiences. This includes courses that tie in to museum teaching, and occasionally curating an exhibition within the museum.

The exhibition, Ethics, Art, and Connections with Nature: Exploring the Archaeological Cultures of Mill Creek and Glenwood, was the result of a course Excavation to Exhibit: Making Artifacts Public (Spring 2025) where students worked collaboratively to develop the exhibition’s theme, objectives, and interpretive inventory.

Mary Alice, a recent UI graduate and one of the student curators, shares her experience collaborating with peers, the skills she gained, and her favorite parts of bringing the exhibition to life.

What was the process like collaborating with the other student curators when putting together the exhibition?

The collaboration process was very rewarding. Everybody in the class had such great ideas and we were all passionate about putting together a good exhibition and we had engaging and in-depth discussions throughout the semester about where we wanted to take things.

Has this exhibition provided you with resources or skills that have helped you after graduation?

Definitely. We got to experience every part of the exhibition planning process aside from installation. I just started a position at the University of Iowa Pentacrest Museums, and although I am not working directly in collections or exhibitions, having an understanding of how all of that works is really valuable. Writing the text for the exhibit also was great practice for writing for the public, which is something I will be doing in my position at the Pentacrest Museums.

How did you get the opportunity to put together this exhibition as a student curator?

I was just looking through the course catalog for anthropology classes and it popped up in my search! When I enrolled, I didn’t realize we would be curating an actual exhibition. When I found that out on the first day I was really happy and excited.

What is your favorite part of the exhibition?

My favorite part is probably the last case, on the very right side of the exhibit. It asks the viewer to engage with the objects and decide what animal they think the effigies might be. I appreciate how it shows that even archaeologists don’t know everything, and a lot of the time they are making educated guesses, which can influence the way we understand the past.

What was one moment that you think had the most impact during this process?

I think one of the most impactful days of class was in the very beginning when we visited the Stanley to see the space and come up with ideas. I found that I had so many questions about the space, what we would be able to do with it, what was allowed and what wasn’t, how we would need to consider accessibility, etc. Even before we had seen the objects or had planned a theme, I had so many ideas and wondered about so many things that went into putting together an exhibition.

Was there a moment during this process that everything started coming together?

Everything started coming together when we started planning out the cases. Each student was assigned a specific case to curate objects and write text for. We were all working individually towards the theme and objectives we had put together as a group. Even when we were split up, everyone was still interacting and having conversations about each other’s cases and making sure everything was cohesive without being repetitive. It was a great group to work with.

Ethics, Art, and Connections with Nature: Exploring the Archaeological Cultures of Mill Creek and Glenwood is the result of a collaboration between the University of Iowa Office of the State Archaeologist (OSA), Department of Anthropology, and the Stanley Museum of Art. OSA Research Collections Director Caroline Parris taught the course Excavation to Exhibit: Making Artifacts Public during the spring 2025 semester, during which students contributed to this exhibition.

Class discussions explored the ethical considerations made by anthropologists and museum professionals in accordance with the National Historic Preservation Act and Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act in interpreting and representing Native Americans and their past. Students worked collaboratively to develop the exhibition’s theme, objectives, and interpretive inventory. Additionally, they wrote text for the panels and designed case layouts. The course instructor and additional OSA and museum staff also contributed to realizing this exhibition.