The Georgia Museum of Art recently welcomed Alexis Gorby to our staff as associate curator of academic and campus engagement. In this new position, she will concentrate on enhancing campus engagement with students and faculty at the museum as well as expanding and enhancing already established programs by the museum’s education department. This newly created position has been a long-time goal for the museum and is now possible thanks to support from the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation.
Gorby came to the museum from Oxford University, in England, where she has been wrapping up her doctoral degree in classical archeology. Drawing on her previous experience at the National Museum of Wildlife Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she has been hard at work since she began in August.
A large part of her new role will be increasing co-curricular programs by bringing in even more students and working with professors to get them to start using the museum’s collections in their teachings. The endeavor is exciting, said Gorby.
It’s amazing when you can make the connection between a subject you may not immediately think would benefit from art to that subject,” she said. “At Oxford, I worked with a neuroscientist who taught neuroscience and art. That’s the kind of connection that I am hoping to make here, in not just the humanities but also these unexpected connections that we can make between different faculties and departments and the museum’s collection.”
For her first project, she is focused on expanding and generating more buzz for student-led tours at the museum as part of a new student guide program, a revamping of the existing student docent program that will give students from a variety of disciplines and majors the opportunity to give public tours at the museum. For Gorby, this means developing robust training.
“I’ll be training them how to research art, how to use objects, how to create an engaging narrative and to use storytelling with art,” she said. “They will be able to give public tours next semester hopefully. Our new group of student guides will start [this month].”
While the museum already hosts student spotlight tours in which students present their research(opens in new tab), Gorby says her goal is to have a regularly scheduled weekly student-led tour.
She wants every student to come to the museum at some point during their time at the university. Moreover, she wants to have more students not only visit the museum galleries, but also participate in the museum’s programs. From artist lectures and film series to drawing classes and yoga in the galleries, the museum has a lot to offer students on their own.
Through faculty use of the museum as a teaching resource, there’s even more that the museum can offer students on campus.
“I’d like the faculty to start using the museum [more] in their classes as well,” she added.”I think it’s an underappreciated resource for them. It can really enhance and help their own teachings.”
Gorby is eager to be a part of the educational efforts at the Georgia Museum of Art, she noted.
“When I saw that the Georgia Museum of Art had a new position opening up, I was just so excited,” she said. “The new position here really is an opportunity to add on to the wonderful work Callan [Steinmann, head of education and curator of academic and public programs], Mallory [Lind, associate curator of education,] and the education team is doing already and grow the program [further].”
Want to become a student docent? Plan ahead for next year’s application process starting in April.
The Georgia Museum of Art’s student guides complete training to lead conversation-based tours of the museum’s permanent collection and temporary exhibitions. Student guides gain public speaking and teaching experience facilitating school and adult tours. Their job is to help museum visitors feel welcome and comfortable, deliver and interesting and educational experience and foster personal connections with works of art. No experience in education or art is necessary; all training is provided.This program requires a 1-year commitment, 12 tours per a year and attendance at continuing education meetings on two Monday mornings per month during the fall and spring semesters. Being a student guide qualifies for UGA’s Experiential Learning Credit.Student guide education sessions start in August each year. Email Alexis Gorby at alexis.gorby@uga.edu for more information or call 706.542.4050.Applications for 2024–25 are now closed. Applications for 2025–26 will open in April 2025.
Authored by:
Rachel Dantes-Palmer
