Hope Amason, Interim Director of Museum of Culture & Environment

Dr. Hope Amason teaches anthropology and museum studies at Central Washington University.  Dr. Amason’s interests in museums began, during a summer position at the Arkansas Museum of Discovery (AMOD) in Little Rock, Arkansas, specifically with AMOD's summer camp program, where she developed recreational activities that were integrated with science lessons learned in summer camp.  She also performed in The Animal Show and The Big Electric Show, informal educational programs aimed at teaching science in fun, innovative ways.  After she graduated from Hendrix College in 2002, she worked at the front desk of the Old State House Museum, also in Little Rock, where she provided interpretive tours for all ages.  While in graduate school for anthropology at the University of Arkansas, Dr. Amason was the education assistant at the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History (SMOH) in Springdale, Arkansas.  She developed lesson plans, led teacher workshops, and worked to reorganize SMOH’s teaching collection, including “discovery boxes,” which were loaned to regional K-12 teachers.  In 2010 she moved to Washington State to work in the Department of Anthropology & Museum Studies.  At the MCE Dr. Amason has worn many hats: curation, exhibition design, production, and installation, public relations, as well as informal, free-choice outreach and curriculum-based education programs.  Because of Dr. Amason’s experience working in museum education, she is concerned with understanding the larger context in which museum learning takes place and how such an understanding can transform interpretive practice.

At Central, Dr. Amason teaches the Introduction to Museum Studies (Anth 360) and the Learning in Museums course (Anth 498)

Lynn Bethke  (M.A.) Lynn Bethke is the Collections Manager for the Museum of Culture and Environment (MCE) and has been working in museums for over a decade.  After earning degrees in Anthropology and English Literature from the University of Wisconsin, she moved to Seattle.  While pursuing her Masters degree in Museology from the University of Washington, Bethke worked as Collections Assistant for the Archaeology Department at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture.  While there, she worked on projects as diverse as the rehousing of petroglyph rubbings, integrating archival holdings, and processing prehistoric basketry.  Since coming to CWU in 2007, she has overseen the move of the MCE's collections, spearheaded digitization efforts, and helps keep the museum running smoothly on a day to day basis.  Bethke oversees collections interns and teaches Curation and Collection Management (ANTH 362).

Lene Pedersen (Ph.D) is a sociocultural anthropologist specializing in southeast Asia, especially Indonesia and Bali.  She has strong interests in the politics of ethnographic representation, in indigenous and non-western museums and in ethnographic film.  She teaches the Visual Anthropology course, an elective in the Museum Studies program.