Drexel Co-ops Learn the Art of Conservation and Collections Care

After their most recent cooperative education (co-op) experience, two Drexel University students will never experience museums in the same way - or books, chemistry, paper, light bulbs or Disney World.

Sophia Stutte, a fifth-year history major from the College of Arts and Sciences, and Terra Waymire-Rozman, a third-year game design and production major from the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, spent six months working as museum conservation project assistants. It was a unique, first-of-its-kind experiential training opportunity offered by the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts (CCAHA), a Philadelphia nonprofit organization, in partnership with Drexel's Lenfest Center for Cultural Partnerships and the Atwater Kent Collection at Drexel (AKC).

The Dragons completed a variety of hands-on projects at both the CCAHA and the AKC. They received specialized teaching, mentorship and guidance from more than a dozen professional staff members with a variety of expertise and work experience.

Eight weeks were spent shadowing CCAHA experts, learning basic stabilization techniques and working on tasks related to environmental monitoring, digitization, digital preservation and preventive conservation. Then, they applied what they learned as they repaired study collection objects ranging from a 19^th century daguerreotype to photographic prints to fragile books and archival papers. Handling everything from start-to-finish and seeing progress in the "before" and "after" was rewarding and satisfying, both Stutte and Waymire-Rozman noted.

For example, under supervision by conservators, they both cleaned, repaired and rehoused posters - World War I posters from the AKC and a movie poster from the CCAHA study collection for the 1949 Mexican movie "El Charro Del Cristo" - by developing and enacting plans to clean grime from the paper surface, flatten creases, mend torn pieces and write a final report. And they both learned some specific techniques for washing, handling and carrying paper, with Waymire-Rozman noting how "surprised" she was to see how stable decades-old media could be and Stutte commenting how "shocking" it was to realize "how much you can really do to a piece of paper."

During the rest of the co-op at the Atwater Kent Collection at Drexel, the students learned how to show and store objects and how spaces should be prepared for both. At the beginning, they helped deinstall its 2024-25 exhibition, Philadelphia Revealed: Unpacking the Attic, and learned how to make condition reports for some of the 650+ displayed objects as they were placed back in storage (like, for example, a Philadelphia Bulletin newspaper vending machine). Toward the end, they assisted with the first steps in preparing for a special project, funded by a Save America's Treasures grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), which will conserve a group of nationally significant Civil War-related material, including more than 600 Civil War field sketches; this work is also in collaboration with CCAHA and other conservators. And in between, the students also learned the ins and outs of managing collections spaces, from temperature checks to pest management.

Their co-op had been developed in response to an industry-wide need to expand career pathways in conservation and collections care, particularly for those from a diverse array of academic backgrounds. Stutte and Waymire-Rozman both said this co-op has also impacted their future academic and professional paths.

After previously working as a game production intern, Waymire-Rozman took this co-op to broaden her horizons; it inspired her to add an art history minor and start debating graduate school in the field. She's now interested in future professional opportunities blending game design, conservation and museum exhibitions.

"I wasn't expecting more opportunities to join this field later on if I so choose, but I learned a lot after talking to a lot of supportive people about this industry," said Waymire-Rozman. "This job has been incredibly fun and so engaging, and I learned things every day."

During Stutte's first co-op as a Drexel University Archives assistant, they developed a resource guide to the Drexel University Archives' collection of materials from Drexel student organizations and clubs. For their second co-op at the Gladwyne Library, Stutte created a catalogue of more than 2,000 books and volumes about Philadelphia and developed a finding aid for researchers about the library's historic "Pennsylvania Room" (Stutte was the Pennsylvania Room archival assistant). In between those experiences, Stutte completed indexing and metadata input and also worked on rehousing projects during a part-time internship as a corporate archives intern at Chubb Insurance.

This final co-op was a new experience in collections housing and management, stewardship and conservation - and their first time working with such a large team. Stutte already wanted to pursue a master's degree in library and information sciences with a focus in archives and collections, but this co-op helped them discover what they described as a "personal passion for digitization and digital preservation" to complement their already established interest in the collections care of physical objects.

"I knew I wanted to keep learning about different areas of archives work that I never knew about before, and this experience showed me how you can combine different interests and make it work," said Stutte.

Throughout their co-op, the students had multiple opportunities to meet other experts and learn from other museums and collections. For example, they visited and attended a graduate-level class on preventive conservation at the Winterthur Museum, which has partnered with the University of Delaware for one of the country's few graduate school programs in art conservation and preservation studies. They also went behind the scenes at the rare book collection and other collection spaces at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, embarked on a guided tour of the Masonic Temple and went on top of the city's highest open-air observation deck through the City Hall Tower Tour.

At the end of the co-op experience, Stutte and Waymire-Rozman summed up what they learned and loved on the job during a final presentation they gave to family, friends and colleagues.

This was the first time that Drexel collections and the CCAHA developed a co-op opportunity together. The federal grant they received from the IMLS for the pilot initiative for conservation technician training was terminated during the same month that the co-ops started, and the CCAHA, Lenfest Center and AKC quickly adapted plans and projects for the students. The Lenfest Center funded the co-ops, and the remaining training was subsidized with support from the Nelson Talbott Foundation (and staff time provided in kind).

Previously, the CCAHA had hired a Drexel physics co-op. And during this co-op cycle, CCAHA experts gave a private tour of its facilities to Drexel co-ops and student workers from the Drexel Founding Collection and others

"Drexel was an ideal partner, with its track record in experiential education and its diversity of academic offerings and collections," said CCAHA Executive Director Michelle Eisenberg. "I so much appreciated how rich this co-op experience could be."