ABOUT THE WALTERS ART MUSEUM
The Walters Art Museum is among America’s most distinctive museums, forging connections between people and art from cultures around the world and spanning seven millennia. Located in Baltimore’s Mount Vernon neighborhood, the Walters is free for all. The museum’s campus includes five historic buildings and 36,000 art objects.
Today, the Walters serves Baltimore and Maryland by embracing its role as educators and storytellers, using the collection as a vehicle of knowledge and cultural expression to support learning, dialogue, and community engagement. The museum is committed to public education, offering essential programs that help people to connect art to their lives. The Walters’ Visitor Promise aligns staff and volunteers across the museum to preserve and share the works in our care for future generations, partner with communities, and create welcoming, accessible experiences for visitors. The museum offers challenging and creative work opportunities by promoting collaboration, teamwork, and a culture that celebrates the diversity and inclusion of all. In December 2020, the museum finalized a set of multiyear diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion (DEAI) goals in alignment with the museum’s Strategic Plan and grounded in the following commitments: expand the histories the museum examines and shares; partner with our communities; and center equity, inclusion, and accountability in our culture and decision-making.
OVERVIEW OF ROLE
The Evaluation Intern is a team member in the Visitor Experience Department. Reporting to the Manager of Evaluation and Audience Impact, over the course of this ten-week internship starting June 9, 2025, the Evaluation Intern will work on a long-term project to understand how visitors engage with contemporary art at the Walters Art Museum through interviews and observations of visitor behavior. This intern will work on two projects: 1) a series of interviews and observations related to a specific installation of contemporary art that will be placed alongside the Walters’ historic collection, and 2) a series of interviews to understand if visitors are generally aware of contemporary art at the Walters and how that impacts their museum experience. This is an opportunity to learn qualitative and quantitative research methods in a museum environment. The Evaluation intern will be trained to conduct observations of visitor behavior as they engage with the galleries and will learn best practices for conducting interviews. During the museum’s open hours, the intern will be in the galleries conducting research with visitors. During the museum’s closed hours, the intern will be transcribing data into excel, analyzing data for trends, and creating a presentation of their findings in PowerPoint. In addition, this internship requires the Evaluation Intern to spend a total of four weekend days and three Thursday evenings onsite when the museum is open to observe and interview weekend visitors who have different audience characteristics than weekday visitors. Through this internship, the Evaluation Intern will build important transferable skills around communication, critical thinking, and data entry/analysis. This project will also provide opportunities for the Evaluation Intern to meet with staff from across the museum to understand how various teams all contribute to the lifecycle of an exhibition.
The Evaluation Internship is one of several interns in the Walters’ Summer Internship Program. Interns selected for this program will gain insight into museum work, broaden their understanding of the museum field, gain knowledge of and appreciation for the Walters’ historic collection, and receive mentorship and professional development from museum professionals while building peer-to-peer relationships with fellow interns.
Duties and Responsibilities:
- Collect visitor data at the Walters via paper/pencil, tablet survey, and verbal interview;
- Follow all data collection protocols to randomly approach visitors, recruit them to participate, and conduct research with visitors;
- Take accurate, precise notes based on observations, interviews, or other engagement with visitors;
- Record, clean, and code quantitative and qualitative data into systems such as Word, Excel, or Google spreadsheets;
- Conduct an analysis of the collected data through hand coding and/or descriptive statistics;
- Create a powerpoint presentation with charts and visuals documenting findings learned through visitor research;
- Participate in an orientation to the museum and collaborate on and participate in continuing professional development designed with emerging professionals in mind;
- All other duties as assigned.
