This article is featured in the 2024 Freshman special issue.
While the Hopkins Center for the Arts has been closed since late 2022 for renovations — which are projected to finish by the fall of 2025 — the Hood Museum of Art has stayed open and aims to take on an increased role in the campus arts scene, according to Hood campus engagement manager Jenna Blair.
For the 2024-25 academic year, the College’s resident art museum is seeking to engage more student groups with its collection and create more “tailored experiences” for students, Blair explained.
Ellie McLaughlin ’25, who serves as the Hood’s Levinson intern — a year-long paid internship that allows students to work on individual projects with museum staff — lamented the museum’s current lack of student visitors, few of whom she said take the time to browse and appreciate the exhibits.
“It would be amazing if [visiting the galleries] got into more of the average student’s rotation of activities for a rainy day,” McLaughlin said. “Anyone who gets the chance to walk through the galleries is always like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is so cool.’”
To that end, Blair said that she is focused on building programming that can accommodate a variety of modes of student engagement with the collection this year.
She explained that the museum hopes to attract not only introverts seeking deep dives into the collections during solo visits, but also “social” individuals with events such as the termly Hood After 5 party. She added that programming such as the free Maker Drop-In crafting sessions offered throughout the year cater to the more artistically-inclined.
“[I want to impart] the message that when you come into the museum you can bring who you are,” Blair said.
Since opening in 1985, the Hood has been a vibrant fixture of the Dartmouth Arts District, housing the College’s staggering global art collection. From 2016 through 2018, the museum underwent a $50 million makeover that introduced six new galleries, renovated existing galleries and revamped the museum’s public reception space. The 65,000 objects in the Hood’s possession represent a host of artistic traditions, from European, Native American and Indigenous Australian to African, Asian and Melanesian, according to the Hood website.
Elizabeth Mattison, the Andrew W. Mellon curator of academic programming and curator of European art at the Hood, said the museum shows a “limited number” of the College’s vast artwork on a rotating basis, as opposed to having a permanent collection on display.
As a result, Mattison said she encourages students to revisit the Hood throughout the year, as exhibits change often and there is “most likely going to be something that you haven’t seen before.”
“What a lot of students might not know is that the collection really belongs to you and to campus,” Mattison said.
While the Hood hopes to increase its student engagement this year, the museum has previously run programs such as curatorial tours and collection-related activities with campus groups, according to Blair. The Hood has also hosted performances by student groups during exhibition opening events, she added.
In the past, in-gallery experiences for student groups such as OPAL have included art-making in the style of an exhibiting artist, engaging in an escape room game, prompt-led small group discussion or a curator or artist-led gallery talk.
This past summer, the museum started collaborating with the Student Wellness Center to launch new “mindfulness at the museum” programming, including yoga and meditation in the galleries, according to Blair.
Interested students also play a role in shaping the museum’s broader engagement strategy. For McLaughlin, her role as a Levinson intern includes working on a student art-loaning initiative — in consultation with Hood curators and a student committee — that will launch on Oct. 4. The program will allow undergraduate and graduate students to choose from a curated, diverse collection of 50 artworks — from artists such as Romare Bearden, Ambreen Butt, Antonio Frasconi, Jiha Moon, Cara Romero, Mickalene Thomas and Paula Wilson — that they can take home with them to their on or off-campus housing on a first-come, first-served basis. Students will sign a loan for the academic year, according to Blair.
“It is [about] opening up access to museum resources and direct connections with works of art,” Blair said. “[It is] an opportunity to get connected with the work of art, to choose something specifically for your space and maybe discover a new artist along the way.”
McLaughlin described her undergraduate work with the Hood, including her senior internship, as both fun and rewarding.
“If you are at all interested in a career in the arts, [getting involved with the Hood] has been the most amazing thing for applying to internships in the real world,” McLaughlin said.
In addition to internships, both McLaughlin and Mattison noted that the Hood’s student engagement is often facilitated by class visits, offering students the chance to visit the museum’s object-study rooms and view relevant objects from the Hood’s collection that are not on public display.
Classes in roughly 30 academic departments ranging from classics and anthropology to geography and psychology make use of Hood visits, according to Mattison. She added that some classes are taught entirely about objects in the Hood’s collection, such as ARTH 19.01: “Fragments of Medieval Art,” which Mattison will co-teach with art history professor Nicola Camerlenghi this fall. The course will focus on a medieval stone rose window that has been in the Hood’s storage since the 1970s and will culminate in an exhibition about the artwork — set to open at the Hood in the winter.
Beyond these offerings, the Hood encourages students to join the museum club, which hosts weekly meetings focused on community engagement. During its meetings, which are open to undergraduate and graduate students in all departments, club participants work alongside Hood staff to devise new student engagement initiatives in addition to planning and hosting Hood After 5.
Mclaughlin said she knew she wanted to pursue working with the Hood after the first museum club meeting she attended her freshman year, during which she learned about and enrolled in the non-curricular course “Museum Collecting 101.” The course allows students the opportunity to work alongside Hood staff to learn about the collection process before ultimately voting to select one work for acquisition.
As part of its long-running “Alumni in the Arts” virtual series, the museum club also hosts two alumni annually working in a range of roles in the arts — in both nonprofit and for-profit spaces — to speak to students about their careers through presentations and Q&A sessions, according to Blair.
Colin Donnelly, a 2024 senior programming intern with the Hood, said one perk of engaging with the museum club — even simply being on the mailing list — is being the first to know about special programming, such as events with visiting artists. Donnelly recalled a visit from the famed Canadian artist Kent Monkman, from whom the museum commissioned a piece for the exhibition “The Great Mystery” and who spoke at the Hood in 2023.
Visiting artists may exhibit works at the museum as well as present lecture-style “artist talks,” according to Blair. This year, she hopes to provide more “opportunities for special access” to the artists, such as organizing time for small group conversations over meals.
Beyond campus, Blair noted that the Hood also enjoys a loyal “community following” within the Upper Valley. McLaughlin recommended that incoming Dartmouth students pay a visit, as they — like many in the area — may fall in love with the museum’s collection.
“[The Hood is] such a special place,” McLaughlin said. “Hanover is this tiny magical little town, and when you walk into the Hood, obviously it’s a little small, but we do have the most amazing collection.”
