Staff
Program Director
Dennis Domer
Acting Director, Museum Studies
Director Graduate Studies, American Studies
domer@ku.edu
Dr. Dennis Domer is the Acting Director of Museum Studies and also serves as the Director of Graduate Studies in American Studies. In reappointing Dr. Domer for the 2011-2012 academic year, the Dean lauded Dr. Domer's service to the program during the previous academic year.
Dr. Domer taught at KU from 1976 to 1999, holding various administrative positions during that time from departmental chair to Associate Vice Chancellor, ending as an associate professor of American Studies and Associate Dean of the School of Architecture. In 2000, he was named Professor and Clay Lancaster Distinguished Professor of Historic Preservation at the University of Kentucky in Lexington where he worked as department chair or director of the Center for Historic Architecture and Preservation. He retired in 2006 and began teaching American architectural history again at KU in 2007. Professor Domer is the author or editor of several books and many articles. He has given lectures throughout the United States and Germany on American architecture and landscapes.
“I decided to accept the museum studies position because it is a pivotal time at the University of Kansas and the stakeholders in museum studies—students, part-time and full-time faculty, directors of museums and archives, deans, and alumni— are on the same page about the program’s future. Our world is exploding with new knowledge, new ideas, and new ways of conveying information, and it is exciting for me to participate in re-shaping the museum studies to respond to that new world. The University of Kansas is a superb educational environment for museum studies because there are so many first-rate museums, archives, and collections on campus, not to mention many extremely talented museum professionals and faculty who are deeply committed to the program. I am impressed with the museum studies students, the strong support of museum professionals in Kansas and the interest of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in promoting excellence in this program. So this is a chance of a lifetime for all of us. As an educator, you can’t ask for anything more.”
Dr. Domer's Curriculum Vitae
Administrative Staff
Holly Shriner
Administrative Associate Senior
hshriner@ku.edu
Holly Shriner joined the Museum Studies program in early 2011. She has spent more years than she’d care to mention working in communications, marketing and public relations for companies ranging from a national association for auctioneers to a company that specialized in providing raw materials and support services to biological pharmaceutical researchers and developers. In between she took a 2-year corporate break to manage an independent children's toy store where she got to read books to and play games with kids, in addition to supervising the retail staff and producing a newsletter. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in journalism from the University of Kansas, received in 1992, which she put to good use during her years as an award-winning newspaper reporter for the St. Joseph, Mo., News-Press, where she wrote about a myriad of topics, including higher education, mental health and “cops and courts.” Holly's Museum Studies position encompasses the duties of office manager, accountant, scheduling officer, hiring manager, graduate secretary and more.
Lecturers
Whitney Baker
wbaker@ku.edu
Whitney Baker is the Conservator for KU Libraries, a post she has held since 2002. A KU graduate (BA Chemistry and Spanish),
she received her MLS with an Advanced Certificate in Library and Archives Conservation from the University of Texas at Austin.
She previously worked in conservation at the Library of Congress and the University of Kentucky. Baker teaches MUSE 706,
Conservation Principles and Practices, for the Museum Studies program.
Sofia Galarza Liu
reina@ku.edu
Sofía Galarza Liu is a Collection Manager at the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas. Liu has also worked
as an implementation consultant and educator for zetcom Information Systems, Inc. providing database administrator and
user training for MuseumPlus clients in the United States. In 2006 she completed Museum Leaders: the Next Generation
training at the Getty Leadership Institute in Los Angeles, California. She holds an MA in Museum Studies and a BFA in
the History of Art from the University of Kansas. Liu teaches MUSE 704, Museum Collection Management, for the Museum
Studies program.
Robert Keckeisen
bkeckeisen@kshs.org
Robert Keckeisen is Director of the Kansas Museum of History in Topeka. He holds an MA in History from Wichita
State University. Keckeisen teaches MUSE 701, Museum Management, for the Museum Studies program.
Mary Madden
mmadden@kshs.org
Mary Madden is Director of Education and Outreach at the Kansas Museum of History in Topeka. She holds an MA in
American Studies from the University of Kansas. Madden teaches MUSE 705, Introduction to Museum Public Education,
for the Museum Studies program.
John C. Pierce
jcpierce@ku.edu
John C. Pierce specializes in political culture, public opinion and public policy and is an affiliate/adjunct
faculty member of the University of Kansas Department of Public Administration, as well as the Museum Studies
program. He is affiliate research faculty for the university's Sustainability Center, as well as research
professor and graduate faculty member, Washington State University at Vancouver; Professor Emeritus, the
University of Colorado at Colorado Springs; and Vice Chancellor Emeritus, the University of Colorado at Colorado
Springs. The previous executive director of the Oregon Historical Society, he holds a BA with university honors
from the University of Puget Sound and an MA and Ph.D.in Political Science from the University of Minnesota.
Pierce teaches MUSE 702, The Nature of Museums, for the Museum Studies program.
Bruce Scherting
bruce-s@ku.edu
Bruce Scherting earned a BS from Eastern Montana College and an MFA from Southern Illinois University. Scherting
has more than 15 years of exhibition planning, design and fabrication experience and is currently the Exhibits
Director at the University of Kansas Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center. Previously
Scherting worked for the University of Iowa Natural History Museum as an exhibition designer/developer and taught
several courses in the museum studies program. Prior, he worked for several years at the Field Museum and Shedd
Aquarium in Chicago. Scherting teaches MUSE 703, Introduction to Museum Exhibits, for the Museum Studies program.
Sherry Williams
swilliam@ku.edu
Sherry Williams is Curator of the Kansas Collection in the Spencer Research Library at the University
of Kansas. She. holds an MLIS from the University of Oklahoma. Williams teaches MUSE 707, Practical
Archival Principles, for the Museum Studies program.
John G. Younger
jyounger@ku.edu
John Younger joined the University of Kansas in 2002 as Professor of Classics and of Humanities
and Western Civilization; he had a short stint as a full-time member of the Classics department
before being invited to become the director of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program. He has a
BA in Classics from Stanford University and an MA and PhD in Classics from the University of Cincinnati.
Younger's research focuses on the Bronze Age Aegean (especially in art [particularly sealstones and
engraved fingerrings] and writing [especially Cretan Hieroglyphic and Linear A] and administration)
and on Greek art, especially sculpture. He has written two books on Minoan-Mycenaean sealstones,
and another on Music in the Aegean Bronze Age; he has also written numerous articles and reviews on
various Bronze Age and Classical topics. Younger teaches MUSE 780, Special Topics:
Introduction to Material Culture for the Museum Studies program.
Faculty Advisory Committee
Dennis Domer
Acting Director, Museum Studies
American Studies, Interdisciplinary track advisor
Director Graduate Studies, American Studies
domer@ku.edu
John M. Janzen
jjanzen@ku.edu
Track Advisor, Anthropology
John M. Janzen researches and writes on the sociocultural dimensions of African health and healing, and theoretical issues in medical anthropology. He has studied healing traditions in Africa, their characteristics and interactions between them. In projects and works - mainly in Central Africa - he has explored the construction of healing narratives and institutions. Currently he works with other scholars on postwar trauma healing in African conflicts and on therapies and restorative social arrangements within African diaspora communities in the United States. He advises students in the Museum Studies Anthropology track. Curriculum Vitae
Leonard Krishtalka
krishtalka@ku.edu
Track Advisor, Natural History
Bruce Lieberman
Track Advisor, Geology
Bruce Lieberman's research involves using the fossil record to study macroevolutionary
patterns and processes. A central part of his research involves
reconstructing phylogenetic patterns in arthropods, especially
trilobites. He is also interested in the role that earth history
changes, such as tectonic changes and climatic changes, play in
influencing evolution. For this reason a central part of his research
involves paleobiogeography. He advises students in the Museum Studies Geology track. Curriculum Vitae
Jeffrey Moran
Track Advisor, History
Associate Professor Moran is the author of Teaching Sex: The Shaping of Adolescence in the 20th Century (Harvard 2000) and of The Scopes Trial: A Brief History with Documents (New York: Bedford Books, 2002). He has recently published articles in the Journal of American History and the Journal of Southern History on the issues of race and evolution during the 1925 Scopes trial. He is
currently finishing a book about the social context of the
antievolution impulse in modern America for Oxford University Press. In
support of this project, Moran has received grants from the American
Philosophical Society and the George and Eliza Howard Foundation. He won
the Organization of American Historians' Louis Peltzer Prize in 1996.
Dr. Moran teaches the 20th-century graduate colloquium in American History, the second half of the undergraduate survey, an upper-level course on the U.S., 1900–1950, and various courses on America in the 1960s. He has advised numerous doctoral dissertations and senior honors theses on topics ranging from Robert Penn Warren to immigration, from the ACLU to segregation in the Great Plains, and from fights over urban development to the history of birth control. He advises students in the Museum Studies History track.
Deborah Smith
Track Advisor, Natural History
Professor Deborah Smith's research combines molecular systematics with the study of social
arthropods. She is particularly interested in the systematics, population
biology and biogeography of honey bees (Apis ) and social spiders (Anelosimus & Stegodyphus). She advises students in the Museum Studies Natural History track.
Sarah K. Bell
Museum Students Organization President
Saralyn Reece Hardy
Director, Spencer Museum of Art
Welcome to the Museum Studies program at the University of Kansas! We offer our students the excellent academic and professional training they need to prepare them for challenging careers in museums, historical agencies, and similar institutions.
Museums are a vital part of American culture. In our museums, we explore our identities, our values, and our dreams for the future. Since 1981, the Museum Studies program at the University of Kansas has prepared its graduates for a lifetime of leadership in this dynamic field. Read More...
