Mead Art Museum Our Learning Approach

An interest in process and praxis

As it approaches its 75th year, the Mead is evolving from its roots as a study collection to a site for dynamic and experiential interactions between communities, curricula, and collections. The Mead's dedicated educators focus on high-impact practices, including cohort internships, collaborative curation, and project-based learning opportunities for Amherst College courses, blending academic instruction with applied and work-engaged learning. Using the Mead's diverse collection, we connect to a wide range of curricular and thematic topics, with an emphasis on college coursework, K-12 partnerships, and project-based learning.

Our work is socially- and community-involved

We convene people across-generations, experiences, and identities through a common interest in art, culture, and stories. Bringing together campus and community members, our programs invite participants to not only learn but contribute, to look and listen deeply, and to share about art, stories, and themselves. 

We are curious and self aware about transformation -institutional, personal, social

Situated within the Amherst College campus, the Mead is located on Nonotuck homeland, and home to diverse indigenous communities today. In acknowledgement of both the material and discursive violence and dispossession of settler-colonial societies towards indigenous communities, members of the African diaspora, and other BIPOC groups - past and present - education programs at the Mead strive to embody and advance anti-oppressive pedagogies.