Alumni Spotlight: Sarah Crawford-Parker

While completing my PhD, my interests kept shifting between museum work and teaching. I had two critical experiences that helped me to forge a path connecting the two. I spent a semester teaching art history in Italy and France as part of KU’s Western Civilization Study Abroad Program. Through the planning and logistics for this program, I acquired some early administrative experience. Also, as I was writing my dissertation, I was hired as a half-time assistant director in the KU Honors Program. This position allowed me to both teach and develop programs that extended students’ learning outside the classroom and fostered interdisciplinary connections. I learned that I deeply enjoy collaborating with faculty and building teams committed to institutional and global change, work that I’ve also been fortunate to do as a special assistant to the provost, assistant vice provost of first-year experience, and now as director of the honors program. Because these roles have focused on education innovations, collaborating with museums has been a constant in my work.

When I was doing my dissertation research, I spent considerable time going through the image archive at the national art history institute (RKD) in The Hague, which was not digitized. By looking at so many images, I strengthened my ability to see patterns and identify themes worth paying attention to. In my current position, I navigate a lot of data and must determine what messages in the data are most important.  Art history helped me to be perceptive and build my confidence in working with and understanding data. 

I also appreciate the role that narrative and storytelling play in many artistic traditions. As an administrator, I often advocate for resources or new ways of doing things. Art history taught me a great deal about how to effectively communicate information and persuade an audience.  Seventeenth-century artists were all about messaging for impact!

Travel as much as you can. Ask challenging questions about how art history shapes the present. And find ways through the department, an internship, or other employment to get experience with assessment. Demonstrating effectiveness is a valuable skill in all fields.