One Hundred Museums and Counting
Maggie Malone '04 estimates she has visited between 75 and 100 museums in her lifetime.
“I have been interested in museums for a long time, starting when I was young,” she says. “My parents took me to museums on vacations.”
Malone enrolled at Alma realizing that the College did not offer the major she preferred. With the guidance of faculty advisor Mary Bonhage-Freund, Malone developed a POE that addressed her specific interests in natural history, anthropology and museum studies.
Alma offers only a minor in anthropology, but transferring to another school was not a serious option for Malone.
“I liked Alma way too much to transfer to another school that offered anthropology or museum studies as a major,” she says. “I spoke with my advisor, who mapped out a course of action. Alma was right for me. Alma was made for me. And the POE fit me even more.
“The POE gave me best of all worlds,” she says. “It took me overseas to study at Aberdeen in Scotland. I wrote my first grant with the Lilly Foundation to do an internship at the Field Museum in Chicago. Through my connections with Dr. Bonhage-Freund, I supervised an archeological dig with the Cranbrook Institute.”
She also had opportunities to develop her interest in Native American culture. She used part of her Lilly grant to restore items that used to belong to the Alma College museum. In addition, a visiting Native American instructor from Arizona took her to her first Sweat Lodge Ceremony, “which was amazingly great,” says Malone.
Since leaving Alma, she pursued a master’s degree in museum studies at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. In addition, she works as a museum software specialist for Pastime Software Company, which creates software products for museums.
“More than 5,200 museums use our products all over the world,” says Malone. “Eventually I want to go back to museum work, but for now, with the software company, instead of helping one museum, I get to help many museums.”
