18 ACUMEN • SPRING 2026 Working in the Galleries The deepest engagement any Lehigh student gets in the museum is as an intern or employee. In the fall of 2025, 22 students were working with LUAG, leading tours, organizing events, helping curate exhibitions, and welcoming visitors at the reception desk. Only a few of them are AAD majors. Thomas Kaspereen ’27 is pursuing a dual degree in neuroscience and philosophy, and he hopes to continue to medical school to earn an MD/PhD so he can do medical research. He loved art classes in high school and considered an art major in college, but he found a different way to incorporate art in his college experience. A New Jersey native, Kaspereen used his work-study benefits to start as a visitor services representative at the front desk at LUAG in his first month on campus. Now Kaspereen continues to serve as a museum educator, helping to design programs for community members, leading tours of the exhibitions and outdoor sculptures around campus, and training fellow museum educators. In his senior year, he plans to pursue an independent project at LUAG. None of that is related to any of his classes. “It’s definitely a time commitment, but the work I’m doing is really enjoyable,” he says. “I really look forward to having these kinds of experiences during my week when I have a lot of other stressful stuff to do.” As an art history and materials science and engineering major, Akins came to the galleries from a different perspective. She chose to come to Lehigh from St. Paul, Minn., because she was interested in engineering and art. She took a museum studies class with Crow in her first semester on campus and joined LUAG’s Peer Arts Council, the student-led club that contributes toward the galleries’ programming, exhibitions, and outreach. The next semester, she began interning at LUAG, conducting archival research and planning tours and events. In 2025, she assisted with an exhibition of Chinese ceramics from the collection that will be displayed in the lower gallery starting in the spring of 2026. “My project specifically is looking at how changes in glaze technology in Chinese ceramics paralleled different periods of Chinese history and reflected different elements of Chinese culture,” she says. “It’s been really amazing because I now have the opportunity to combine that scientific knowledge with my art history knowledge.” For the exhibition, Akins is using all of the skills she learned in her art and engineering classes, as well as her work at LUAG. She researched which items in the collection might be a good fit, selected the ones to display, and created labels explaining their history and composition. She learned about the different materials artists used, and how they must be carefully maintained. And in doing so, she has become well prepared to go to graduate school and eventually work in a museum herself. What more could a teaching museum hope to accomplish? ● PHOTOS COURTESY OF LUAG Left to right: Over 1,200 people attended LUAG’s “Light Up LUAG” event to kick off 100 years; students draw in the lower gallery; vases from the “Gateway to Himalayan Art” exhibition; visitors create coral reef structures using recycled materials; a student draws in “The Temple,” an outdoor sculpture on Lehigh’s Asa Packer campus.
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