Tusculum College Museums win two state awards

The Tusculum College Museum Program and Studies department was the recipient of two awards at the recent Tennessee Association of Museums annual meeting, held in Jackson.

Students in the museum studies program won an Award of Excellence for their exhibit, “Reaper: Nettie Fowler McCormick and the Machine that Built Tusculum College,” and the program won an Award of Commendation for its Historic District Lantern Tour, which was offered during the 2014 Old Oak Festival.

“The great thing about this exhibit is that it challenges the visitors’ pre-conceived notions about how and why Nettie Fowler McCormick made Tusculum College a focus of her philanthropic efforts,” said Josh Helvey, a senior museum studies major from Blountville. “It provides new insight into what exactly made this generosity possible, namely her husband’s wealth generated by his company and the forces that made that company profitable in the first place. Given that we as a class only had three and a half weeks to build this exhibit, the Award of Excellence is an honor and point of pride we can all share.”

Tusculum’s undergraduate students competed in the same categories as professional exhibit designers from across the state.

Leah Walker, site and events manager of the Doak House Museum, and Dollie Boyd, director of the museum, also presented at the conference. Boyd’s session was titled “Out of the Kitchen, Into the Tour Script: Giving the Women’s Story at your Site Equal Time,” and Walker’s session was titled “Excellent TAM Awards of Excellence.”

The Tennessee Association of Museums was founded in 1960 and fosters communication and cooperation between museums, cultural societies and other members of common interests. The goal of the association is to inform the public on the importance of understanding and preserving Tennessee’s cultural, historical, and scientific heritage.

 

One of the two state awards won by the Tusculum College Museum Program and Studies department was for the exhibit “Reaper: Nettie Fowler McCormick and the Machine that Built Tusculum College,” which is still on display at the President Andrew Johnson Museum and Library.