保护遗产

After a quick check for oncoming traffic, Stephanie 艾伦 ’10 steps into the crosswalk. She strides confidently across Elm Street in Dallas’ Dealey Plaza and into the shadow of the former Texas School Book Depository.

It’s windy, and 艾伦 pulls a strand of brown hair from her face. She points up to a corner window on the building’s sixth floor and nods.

“就是这样，”她说. “那是狙击手的位置.”

“栖木”是一个标志性的特征 迪利广场的六楼博物馆, where 艾伦 works as the collections and exhibits manager. She oversees the preservation of the permanent object, 档案, and audio/visual collections and maintains an information database about the collection. 艾伦 joined the museum, which explores the life, legacy, and assassination of President 约翰F. 肯尼迪，2016年9月.

Decorated with 海报 for the Kennedy campaign and Pablo Larraín’s 杰基, 艾伦’s office is located in the museum’s basement, where collections not on display are housed. To protect the collection from insects and other damage, 艾伦 runs an integrated pest management (IPM) program and environmental monitoring program that tracks the physical well being of every object. 博物馆里有报纸, 书, 按钮, 海报, 吊唁信, 纪念品, 还有来自世界各地的其他物品.

It’s an extensive collection that 艾伦 familiarized herself with over the last 10 months.

“Learning about President Kennedy through these materials has been absolutely fascinating,艾伦说。. “He was such a charismatic individual and his death was a moment in history that really touched people, not only because of his initiatives and programs, but also because of how coverage of the event was broadcasted for the first time to that degree.”

博物馆的永久展览， 约翰F. 肯尼迪和一个国家的记忆, encompasses the entire sixth floor and includes the famous sniper’s perch where Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly assassinated Kennedy. 而这个展品不动, items are rotated and all are monitored for temperature, 湿度, 适当的照明水平. When traveling exhibits come to the museum, 艾伦 is responsible for exhibit design and collaborates with the collections department on choosing items and how they are arranged. The team always considers an overarching theme or idea that everything in the exhibit must reinforce.

尽管博物馆工作是她现在的爱好, 艾伦, an anthropology and art history double major, once considered a career as a field archaeologist. 作为澳门金沙线上赌博官网的学生, 她甚至还去挖了个坑, but realized it wasn’t something she wanted to pursue long-term. 詹妮弗·马修斯, 社会学和人类学教授, was 艾伦’s academic adviser and recommended an internship at the 圣安东尼奥 Museum of Art.

“That internship was absolutely amazing,艾伦说。. “It made me realize all of the work that goes on behind the scenes in museums that I had never really considered. My eyes were opened to this viable career option and a fascinating new world of actual objects and primary sources.”

作为一名学生, 艾伦 was president of 澳门金沙线上赌博官网’s Gaelic Cultural Society and was a member of the 澳门金沙线上赌博官网 Multicultural Network, precursor of the 澳门金沙线上赌博官网 Diversity Connection. She was energized by learning about diverse cultures and being part of a larger organization. One of 艾伦’s favorite courses, taught by Mathews, was Anthropological Ethics. It tasked students to analyze ethical case studies and their ramifications in sociocultural anthropology, 体质人类学, 和考古学, and even featured a week on museum-based ethics. 艾伦 loved the class so much she later became its teaching assistant and even returned as an alumna, 几年后, 通过Skype做客座演讲.

在澳门金沙线上赌博官网, 艾伦 attended George Washington University for a master’s in museum studies, concentrating in collections management and material culture. 然后她向西搬到了俄克拉荷马州的诺曼., to work at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History at the University of Oklahoma. While there, 艾伦 met her fiancé, fellow 澳门金沙线上赌博官网 alum Jansen吉文斯 09年，在澳门金沙线上赌博官网俄克拉荷马分会的活动上.

北德克萨斯人, 艾伦 is happy to be back in Dallas and eager to share the life of President Kennedy with the more than 400,000 people who visit the Sixth Floor each year.

“I want our visitors to gain an appreciation for the man, 他的总统任期, 以及他对国家的影响,艾伦说。. “There’s also the impact of his death and sheer fact of where we are, which is still amazing to me.”