Category: Semester

Carrie Tananbaum, BMC ’27

Praxis Course: Museum Studies Praxis Seminar

Semester: Spring 2026

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Monique Scott

Community Partner: Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History

Praxis Site Supervisor: Claire Pingel

Praxis Poster:

HART_CarrieTananbaum

 

Further Context:

This semester I worked at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in their curatorial and collections departments. I got the opportunity to work closely on their exhibition for the 250th anniversary of the United States of America, The First Salute: An Untold Story of the American Revolution. My main job was to complete condition reports for incoming loans for the exhibition. Condition reports are written records of the physical state of an artifact at a given time. These reports are extremely comprehensive and note every little detail about the object. They are written to hold the museum accountable so that the object does not get damaged
while on loan. I was lucky enough to handle many artifacts, from a copy of The Declaration of Independence to a 18th century Hanukkah lamp. It was super interesting to get to work with these artifacts as they truly brought history alive.

My time at the museum this past semester has been really fulfilling. I learned a lot about what it actually takes to have a career in the museum field. It was super interesting to see how collaborative it is to create and install a major exhibition. There were teams from all over the world working together on this one project. People had even been working on this exhibition for over a year. I was very fortunate to see all the hard work of so many people come to fruition. This experience was one that will last me a lifetime.

Isabella Cabrices, Katya Gannushkin, & Clara Udelson

Praxis Course: Thorne Practicum     

Semester: Spring ‘26    

Faculty Advisor/Professor:  Jodie Baird  

Community Partner: Phebe Anna Thorne School     

Praxis Site Supervisor:  Jodie Baird 

Praxis Poster:

Psyc215_EarlyIntervention Clara_Udelson

 

Further Context:  

In the Thorne Practicum course, we were placed within various classes at the Phebe Anna Thorne Preschool while, simultaneously, researching early childhood educational practices. Katya and Isabella worked in the Language Enrichment Preschool Program (LEPP) which provides early speech interventions for children ages 3-5. Clara worked in the younger classroom where several students receive individualized early intervention supports. These experiences inspired us to reflect on the common theme of early intervention. The creation of this poster prompted us to further research the topic of early intervention and synthesize the underlying developmental concepts with our personal experiences. Through the process, we gained a deeper understanding of the importance of early intervention and the many forms it can take. In the poster, we outlined the importance of early intervention as well as the ways it appears within our praxis site.   

Clara: I worked in the younger classroom at the Thorne school where I witnessed several county provided services. In the poster, I described the Pennsylvania Early Intervention Program to highlight how these services are accessible across the state of Pennsylvania. The Thorne school specifically uses services provided by the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit. It is amazing to me how many different types of services that children can receive at no cost from the state. I have personally witnessed one-on-one aides, occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists, and hearing specialists in just one classroom at Thorne. It can feel a bit hectic with so many adults moving in and out of the room, but the impact these services have is incredible. I have seen the development of children’s social and communication skills which allows them to fully connect with their peers and blossom in the school environment. I’m grateful to have been able to study and witness early intervention services.
 

Isabella: I worked in the LEPP classroom where I got to see targeted language interventions happening throughout the day in a really intentional way. On the poster, I focused more broadly on the importance of early intervention and how access to support at a young age can shape later development. Being in LEPP made that idea feel much more real, because I could actually see how those supports were helping the kids grow over time. I watched their confidence build as they became more comfortable using language, and it was especially meaningful to see how that translated into their play with peers. As their language developed, their play became more interactive and collaborative, and I really enjoyed being able to join in and watch those moments unfold. I also saw how being in a smaller, specifically targeted classroom setting gave them the support they needed to learn and practice these skills in a manageable environment. It made it clear to me that this kind of early intervention is helping prepare them to enter kindergarten more ready to participate, communicate, and handle the expectations of a larger and more complex school setting.  

Katya: I also worked in the LEPP classroom, where I had the chance to observe play-based speech, language, and social interventions in a group of 3-5 year old students. Working on the LEPP specific section of the poster, I synthesized some of the most impactful aspects of early intervention I experience daily in my placement. The structured nature of class time, with play stations targeted towards specific language, procedural, social, creative, or motor skills, and similar targeted group activities, helped streamline transitions and create a predictable environment that promoted focus, skill development, and self-regulation. I saw newer students build up their confidence and understanding of classroom routines, taking proactive steps to follow routines and help others do the same. Simultaneously, the very small classroom, teacher to student ratio, usually 1:2 on my placement day, and individual speech-language pathologist sessions, allowed for consistent individualized support with targeted learning relating to play, social communication, and language production. In just one semester, I saw not only growing vocabulary, grammatical awareness, and pronunciation skills, but also development in how they were put into practice, through collaborative social and play skills. A testament to the importance of early intervention, it was valuable to witness many of these moments of growth, and I am so glad I got to be involved in their learning.  

Laurel Gabbard, BMC ’26

Praxis Course: HART B420 Museum Studies Fieldwork

Semester: Spring 2026 

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Monique Scott    

Community Partner: The Fabric Workshop and Museum

Praxis Site Supervisor: Justin Hall

Praxis Poster:

HART_LaurelGabbard

 

Further Context:

This semester, I have been interning as an Archives and Collections Intern at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia. FWM is a small contemporary art museum, founded in 1977, originally operating as a print workshop for artists. It officially became a museum in 1996. The museum has incredible rotating art exhibitions, while also priding themself on their artist-in-residence program and their extensive community programming. 

In my time there, I have been working primarily in the archives on a couple different projects. We began the semester working on photography of banners held in FWM collections, primarily from artist residencies. I then worked to upload items to the CollectionSpace database, and finally, these images were uploaded to the FWM website so the public can better access what is held in these collections. I have also been photographing and recording items held in Artist Boxes, which are filled with items from these artist residencies, in order to catalogue what is held in the museum. In these past few weeks, I have also been assisting in exhibition installation and de-installation. I helped de-install a Moki Cherry exhibit and have since helped with condition reports and installation for other upcoming shows.  

I have gotten a lot of great experience in hands-on archival work, and I have loved getting to see so many different aspects of museum work, from digital media and photography to archival organization, to data entry, to exhibit installation and de-installation! I have formed great connections with professionals at FWM and feel very lucky to have had this experience with such a great supervisor! It has been incredibly engaging, and I loved my time here! 

Maya Wallace, BMC ’27

Praxis Course: Praxis Independant Study

Semester: Spring 2026

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Marissa Golden

Community Partner: The Public Interest Network

Praxis Site Supervisor: Marites Velasquez

Praxis Poster:

PIS Maya_Wallace_Praxis Poster 1

 

Further Context:

As an intern with The Public Interest Network (TPIN), I have created a wide range of digital content for environmental and consumer advocacy issues. Some notable assignments I worked on included creating an image about deep sea mining plans in Alaska, highlighting the need for wildlife crossings and developing emails for the save the bees campaign. Over the spring semester, I additionally discovered a few key takeaways related to the strategies of TPIN and connections with the operations of advocacy organizations as a whole.

For one, TPIN seeks to build transpartisan support for their issue areas. With the current polarized political climate, they find value in connecting people around common sense issues. As a result, they form coalitions with a wide range of groups across the political spectrum. For example, TPIN pushes for alternatives to unsafe pesticide usage with the Make American Healthy Again movement, mobilizes support from hunters and anglers for wildlife crossings and advocates for the military right to repair.

Since the Reagan era, environmental nonprofits were largely cut out of political processes on the Hill for the first time. Previously reliant on insider connections, these organizations adapted by widening their support base to the general public. TPIN follows a similar strategy of reliance on communities directly, shielding them from instability on the Hill and preventing them from becoming beholden to any one interest. As the D.C. political climate becomes unfavorable to environmental and consumer advocacy interests, TPIN builds support throughout the country.

In line with their transpartisan agenda, TPIN pursues incremental change alongside long-term goals. Many of us may internally hope to achieve ideal goals, like developing a completely sustainable future with solar and ending the use of toxic pesticides that harm public health. However, political realities impede these larger plans. Part of the changemaking process for TPIN includes compromise, working towards small improvements that inch us towards a better future for the environment and consumers.

To work towards these goals and support their long-term operations, organizations in the network gain funding from a diverse array of sources. TPIN primarily receives money from small-scale donors, limiting their reliance on a few major entities. Additionally, the format for fundraising varies. Emails highlighting major issue areas contain a fundraising component, and in-person canvassers raise money for campaigns while broadening the support base of TPIN. This funding strategy allows TPIN organizations to flourish even as federal funding dries up for some other nonprofits.

Beyond their organizational strategies, I learned a great deal about issue areas as an intern with the network. I wrote about crossings that connect fragmented wildlife habitats, the removal of bee-killing pesticides from retail shelves and the recall of dangerous AI toys. Behind all of these campaigns, however, are strategies supporting a network of organizations committed to standing up for the public interest and our environment. The range of tactics TPIN employs to sustain their organizations and make progress on these issues is truly remarkable.

Willa Bywater, BMC ’27

Praxis Course: Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar

Semester: Spring 2026

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Monique Scott

Community Partner: Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Praxis Site Supervisor: Anthony DiGiovanni

Praxis Poster:

HART_WillaBywater_compressed

 

Further Context:

This semester I worked at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania is a research library and archive and has one of the nation’s largest collections of American history. While it primarily functions as a research space, it also has exhibits in the lobby which are free to view, and often hosts events for the community or tours for interested local groups.

Although the museum is already in possession of over 600,000 printed materials and 400,000 graphic items (photographs, prints, etc), they’re still collecting new items! One of their recently acquired collections was the Louise G. Saxton Music Collection, donated by a board member in memory of her mother. The collection consists of primarily sheet music, but also a handful of other papers relating to music or church activities. It was my responsibility to start the cataloguing process–I’ve never done cataloguing before, so I learned a lot along the way!

As outlined in the poster, the process was complex, but pretty straightforward once I got it down. My boss would give me the stack of items to be catalogued, and I would go through and run a search in the library’s online catalog, Discover, to make sure we didn’t already have a copy of any of the items. Once I’d confirmed that, I would start the individual cataloguing process. The first step was to use the software OCLC Connexion to look through WorldCat to see whether anyone else had cataloged each item before. I had no idea that WorldCat existed, and it was
pretty incredible to see–it’s a massive database of cataloged items from libraries everywhere from the US to France and Germany and Denmark. It truly gave me an impression of how important sharing resources and information is to library work. Sometimes I would find a catalog for the item I was looking for that had been made in 2019–sometimes I would find one from 1995. One particular library kept popping up because they also had a music collection named for a specific donor who apparently had a lot of the same music taste as Louise G. Saxton!

If a catalog already existed–which usually it did–I would “copy catalog,” taking the existing information and editing whatever I needed to or adding information if it was missing. Often existing catalogues didn’t have a call number, for whatever reason, so I’d have to go search the Library of Congress list of call numbers to find the right one. (Fun fact: the system of records used for cataloguing, called MARC records, include numbered fields for specific information. There’s one field, 050, that’s used for only call numbers assigned by the actual Library of Congress themselves. Everyone else–even if they’re using the LoC system–has to use 090! No touching the Library’s special field!)

If no existing catalog for this item existed, this was very exciting–and scary, because it meant I had to “original catalog” and make it from scratch! Sometimes I wasn’t working entirely from scratch–once or twice there was a catalog for a copy of the item that was just from a different year, or had a different singer featured on the cover, and then I could essentially copy catalog even if I was making a new record. But there were a few times where I truly had to put in all the information by hand, and that took a long time. Either way, once that process was done, I would update the holdings and export the newly copied or created record to Alma, the library system that we used (shared with UPenn). I’d add the call number and location in Alma, release it to discover, and then write the call number down in the physical copy.

It sounds complicated all written out like this, but it was something like 75% copy cataloging, and it got pretty rote after a while. However, working at the Historical Society was never boring! I did all the work I mentioned above while sitting at the front desk with a reference librarian, so whenever a patron came up to us asking for help, I got to listen in. We get a lot of people coming to the Historical Society with questions, ranging from “I know the specific item I want, how do I get it?” to “I want to learn about this very broad topic. Give me everything!” (We can’t.) Generally, step one was to direct people to either our physical catalog or our online catalog, and help them narrow down their search. Once they had some items, we had them fill out a call slip, and then they’d go into the reading room, give the call slip to the person at the desk, and have their item paged for them so they could read it. Sometimes the items they wanted were in “open stacks” (still in the reading room, but accessible to anybody and not needing to be paged), and then they could go in there and read it themselves. I got a feel for this workflow eventually too, and started being able to help pick up the slack when we had multiple visitors wanting help at once. During my time at the reading desk, I helped a man search through our finding aids, helped a man export a scan of microfilm to a thumb drive (I got nervous when he asked for my help, because I knew nothing about microfilm, but thankfully I do know how thumb drives work!), and patiently explained to a very frustrated woman that there are numerous places called Christchurch in Pennsylvania, and if you’re looking for an ancestor buried in Christchurch Cemetery, it would be really helpful if you knew the county. Sometimes the help I could give people wasn’t related to the library at all–we had some elderly siblings come in with a fully fleshed-out genealogy inherited from their grandmother that they mostly wanted help formatting. We explained to them that we didn’t do that, but I recommended them a free website that they could use to visualize it (which I had used for a different class at Bryn Mawr). Sometimes the help we could give was sending people somewhere else–we had one couple who wanted to find more about the history of their house, which they thought was on the National Register of Historic Places. I navigated to that register’s website (used in a previous class!), and looked for it, but we couldn’t find it, much to all of our puzzlement. Then I had a thought–I went first to the Pennsylvania Register of Historic Places, and then to the Philadelphia Register, and it turned out to be this last level where their house had been registered. I directed them to the Philadelphia Register to find the records of their house and continue their research journey.

Ultimately, I feel very happy with my time at HSP. I feel that I was able to get some good work done, and I definitely learned a lot about the inner workings of a research library. Cataloging is an admittedly tedious but nonetheless important part of the archival process, and I’m glad to
have some experience in it under my belt–and I can tell a Library of Congress call number from a Dewey Decimal now! What I took away from the experience most of all, though, was the degree to which libraries and archives rely on each other, and on communities, to function.
People often think of archives as hoarders of information, taking it and putting it in a vault to keep, but really archives are in the business of sharing information, among themselves and to others. OCLC Connexion is rightly named–it’s connection that keeps archives running, and the
sharing of knowledge that is their ultimate purpose

Abby Litchfield, HC ’26 & Clara Morton, HC ’26

Praxis Course: DSCI 310: Data in Action

Semester: Spring 2026

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Jennifer Spohrer

Community Partner: Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development’s (PHENND) Climate Resilience Youth Council (CRYC)

Praxis Site Supervisor: Lane Frazee

Praxis Poster:

DSCI 310 CRYC

 

Further Context:

This semester, our team partnered with the Climate Resilience Youth Council (CRYC) supported by the Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development (PHENND). CRYC is made up of 18 high school-aged youth from diverse communities and school types across Philadelphia. The program is focused on developing student’s climate change literacy and civic engagement. Another core piece of the curriculum is designing and supporting a climate resilience project focused within a student’s neighborhood.

This program has been running for several years however, until this point there has been no way to track and gather student feedback. Our partner wanted to develop a survey to understand student experiences within the program and implement feedback into future iterations of the program. Additionally, student feedback can help show the impact and reach of the program, ultimately helping CRYC obtain funding or grants.

We initially aimed for a mixed method approach in which we would design a survey to be given to the current cohort of CRYC students and combine this with a focus group to gain a nuanced understanding of students’ experiences. With the information gained from the survey and the contextualization from the focus group, we could revise the survey into a pre and post program assessment. Finally, we would provide CRYC with a plan for analyzing the results from these surveys so they could adjust the program as needed to future cohorts.

We focused on using Google forms to create a primarily likert scale survey for current students. With our partner we were able to isolate four categories that were most essential to understanding student’s experiences and takeaways. These categories were climate change literacy, civic engagement literacy, program experience, and leadership development. We chose to leave this survey completely anonymous to allow for respondents to feel comfortable giving positive and negative feedback.

We wanted to design a likert scale survey to present the current cohort of students with a way to express their growth in skills and knowledge that we were able to analyze clearly. We then included open ended questions to understand the reasons behind some of the trends found in the likert scale answers. Unfortunately, we were unable to conduct the focus group due to
funding constraints, so we ultimately incorporated some of the more vital questions into the survey that we plan to use for the beginning and end of the next cohort term.

This partnership experience emphasized for us the importance of clear communication and adaptability. Our collaboration and understanding of the needs of CRYC grew throughout the semester, and we feel confident that the surveys and resources we provide for them will sustain their data needs throughout future cohorts.

Sinclair Brown, BMC ’28

Praxis Course: Museum Studies Praxis Seminar

Semester: Spring 2026

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Dr. Monique Scott

Community Partner: Arch Street Meeting House

Praxis Site Supervisor: Jennifer Gray

Praxis Poster:

HART_SinclairBrown-compressed

 

Further Context:

When I began my search for a Praxis internship site, as an art history major, I started with art museums and art related organizations—but none of them felt like quite the right fit for me. However, I met Jenn (my eventual supervisor) at a museum career fair and almost immediately felt that Arch Street Meeting House could be the right fit for me. Religion has always interested me, but I knew little to nothing about Quakerism. Further, ASMH was in the process of renovating their exhibition space ahead of the United States semiquincentennial, and I was excited by the opportunity to be involved in the process of exhibition design.

Arch Street Meeting House is a historic Quaker meeting house and burial ground that hosts both a local weekly Friends meeting and the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, an annual gathering of all of the Quakers in the region. As well as serving as an active site of worship, ASMH has converted the East meeting room and a smaller reception room into a museum space. In my opinion, the character of this space as simultaneously holding a significant historical legacy aswell as still being an active site of worship and community renders the museum even more relevant and impactful.

Upon starting my time with ASMH, I had the wonderful surprise of discovering that I would be working alongside two Bryn Mawr alums: Beth Tinker ‘97 and Isabella Dorfman ‘17. It was incredibly special to have the opportunity to learn from two alumnae with careers in my desired field of study! My primary responsibility at ASMH was assisting Beth, who is an independent museum consultant (meaning that she creates and coordinates exhibitions and surveys) in the final months of preparations before the April 30th grand opening. I had a wide variety of tasks, large and small, and each workday was a fun surprise!

My most significant project was the development and prototyping of a choose-your-own-adventure-inspired interactive exhibit that would educate visitors about evolving Quaker values in the 1700s. Visitors will imagine themselves to be Quakers in this time period, follow a path, and make decisions that will either allow them to continue or cause them to be “read out of meeting” (disowned) and therefore be ‘out’ of the game. Each ‘out’ point is accompanied by a real historical example of a Quaker being disciplined for the same offense. When I received the project, Beth had already conceptualized it and came up with a list of possible decision points. I researched the historical context surrounding the three topics/paths—for example, one of the paths deals with Quaker practices and beliefs surrounding enslavement, which shifted drastically within this time period—and shaped the decision points into a chronologically-driven flow chart that visitors could actually progress through. I also supplemented these decision points with many more based upon significant historical events or interesting instances of Quaker disownment that I came across. I then worked with Beth to prototype this exhibit by printing a mockup and encouraging museum visitors to try the paths. I collected observations of visitors’ behavior, as well as surveying them after they felt they had completed the activity. After implementing the feedback gathered here, the flow charts I designed have been sent to a graphic designer, who will adapt them to be printed on a large mat that visitors can walk across in the center of the exhibition space!

Some of my other favorite tasks were assembling a kids’ scavenger hunt (in which they follow fox-shaped signs, in honor of Quakerism’s founder George Fox), voicing suffragist Alice Paul for an interactive exhibit, transcribing a cursive note affixed to an artifact, and writing image
captions for the displays. I had plenty of less glamorous tasks as well, such as cleaning the 200-year old (and extremely dusty) benches and installing UV film on the object cases. As a whole, I feel that it’s incredibly fulfilling to know that I have left a lasting impact upon the exhibition space as well as the experiences of every visitor who explores Arch Street Meeting
House. More personally, I’ve truly loved my time at ASMH and all of the people I worked with, and found it extremely impactful in shaping my goals for my future museum career.

Georgia Svoboda, BMC ’26

Praxis Course: HART B420 Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar

Semester: Spring 2026

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Professor Monique Scott

Community Partner: Fleisher Art Memorial

Praxis Site Supervisor: Rachel Hsu and Gerard Silva

Praxis Poster:

HART_GeorgiaSvoboda

 

Further Context:
This spring semester I interned at Fleisher Art Memorial in South Philadelphia, one of the oldest community arts centers in the United States. Founded in 1898 by Samuel S. Fleisher, it continues to be dedicated to offering accessible art education to both young people and adults and has a strong relationship with the Philadelphia community, often featuring art from local artists and holding community events and programs.

During my time at Fleisher, the majority of my work was spent supporting the Young Artists Program (YAP), where every Saturday I worked directly with students aged 5-12. A typical day involved going to three hour and a half long classes, working under the direction of the teaching artists as I guided students through the project for that day. Although I had experience working with children in the past, working with children in an educational setting was a new experience for me, so I had felt somewhat nervous during my first day. However, I quickly became comfortable and was able to enjoy my time at Fleisher thanks to the welcoming atmosphere and friendliness of both the staff and students.

Two major projects at Fleisher I helped with were the Spring Open House and end-of-year Student Art Exhibition. For the Spring Open House, one of my main contributions was the creation of a press release that was sent to local schools and other community centers to advertise upcoming summer and fall classes at Fleisher. My other main contribution was greeting new students and their families at the Open House’s welcome table alongside two other interns. The Spring Open House was especially exciting for me as it was the first time I had helped out with a project like that one and allowed me to see how a non-profit such as Fleisher goes through the process of creating such an event. The end-of-year Student Art Exhibition was similarly exciting for me as it was also a new experience. It was also especially fun to be able to look back on and celebrate all of the artwork created by the students over the Spring Term.

Throughout my entire experience at Fleisher, my favorite aspect was the people I met. Working with the teaching artists and students strengthened my interest in community engagement, education, and accessibility in museum spaces. I am especially thankful to my Praxis Site Supervisors Rachel Hsu and Gerard Silva as well as Professor Scott and Tiffany Stahl for all of their wonderful help and support. The connections I formed at Fleisher allowed me to become much more confident in my leadership abilities and gain a deeper appreciation of all the work done in community non-profits.

Libby Travis, BMC ’28

Praxis Course: ENVS 420 Praxis III: Sustainability at BMC

Semester: Spring 2026

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Professor Victor Donnay    

Community Partner: Bryn Mawr College

Praxis Site Supervisor: Neha Sood

Praxis Poster:

ENVS 420_Libby H Travis_Updated_PraxisPoster_Travis

 

Further Context: 

The topic of food waste is essential to any conversation surrounding sustainability. Goal 12 of the United Nations Sustainable Development goals: Ensure sustainable production and consumption patterns, includes the goal of halving global per capita food waste at the retail and consumer levels. We can all be a part of making progress on this goal, and Erdman Dining Hall is already getting started through the implementation of Leanpath technology and more conscious waste tracking and reduction. Since we started using Leanpath at the beginning of the Spring 2026 semester, we have seen an over 24% reduction in food waste! This is equivalent to over 11 metric tons of CO2 emissions avoided and over 1,300 gallons of gasoline conserved. In the following blog post I will tell the story of how we got such great success. 

Leanpath is a company that supports food waste reduction technology for the food service industry. They have multiple set ups to accommodate various scales of food service operations. At Erdman Dining hall we use the Bench Scale AI product to scan all food waste before it is disposed of. In the photo on my poster, Erdman Cook, John Natale demonstrates the transaction process where the user:

    1. Places plan of food on scale + Leanpath takes picture 
    2. Selects the correct identifier for the user completing the transaction 
    3. Selects type of food from filtered options given by Leanpath 
    4. Selects the correct pan from filtered options given by Leanpath 
    5. Selects Compost or Trash to track disposal method 

The AI component of Leanpath is only in the image analyzing steps which gives recommendations for the type of food and pan based on previous transactions. This helps integrate it into the fast-paced kitchen environment with the average transaction only taking 15-20 seconds for Erdman workers. All food waste is composted at Erdman dining hall unless there are delays in Compost bin pick-up and delivery. We experienced this during the severe winter weather early in the semester which resulted in food waste temporarily being disposed of in the trash.  

People in every role at Erdman complete these transactions, from student workers to prep cooks to managers, and every employee shares responsibility for the great success we’ve had so far! One of the ways we are able to turn this data collection into tangible reductions in food waste is through actionable month-long goals. These goals are created in collaboration with management and cooks at Erdman and we have started with goals that focus on the most wasted foods by weight, while also trying to prioritize reduction of foods that are carbon intensive, expensive, or both. Our first set of goals ran from March 11th, 2025 to April 12th, 2025. During that time we focussed on trying to reduce boneless chicken waste by 10% and waste from eggs and pasta by 15%. I am very excited to report that we met all our goals!  

We developed many strategies for reducing waste and meeting these goals. By understanding trends in waste and consumption, cooks are better able to understand how much to prepare in advance. Additionally for foods that can be quickly made, like scrambled eggs in the mornings, cooks were able to confidently prepare less knowing they could always make more during service if there was higher-than-expected demand. Another way we are able to prevent food waste is by repurposing food that would otherwise go to the compost. One of the goals this was most effective for was boneless chicken where we were able to reduce waste by 25%! Leftover grilled chicken from the pasta bar during dinner was safely cooled and stored then repurposed for the salad bar during lunch and dinner.  

Collaboration and communication were key themes to the implementation of leanpath at Erdman. Working on this project for my praxis class while also working my regular shifts as a student supervisor at Erdman gave me a very rewarding experience. I remember learning how to use the Leanpath touchscreen on my first shift back after winter break and watching others excitedly talking about this new device and scale. One of my favorite leanpath memories was when I was working a Monday dinner shift. We were setting up the dining hall, preparing the proper service utensils and labels, when John walked out of the kitchen with a big smile on his face. He starts excitedly introducing the chicken waste goal to me and other student workers, explaining how leftover chicken is going to be sliced and reused at the salad bar. From the moment he walked over and started talking I saw the faces of my coworkers and friends quickly morph to match his smile and joy. This moment has stuck with me as an example of how powerful excitement can be in building community and uniting people towards a common goal. I am grateful to every single person who has been a part of Leanpath at Erdman. We are all a part of progress, and I hope this blog post gets you a little bit excited about making positive change by reducing food waste. 

Kenna Pettigrew, BMC ’26

Praxis Course: Museum Studies Praxis Seminar

Semester: Spring 2026

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Monique Scott

Community Partner: Icebox Project Space

Praxis Site Supervisor: Timothy Belknap

Praxis Poster:

HART_KennaPettigrew

 

Further Context:

This semester, I worked as a curatorial intern for Icebox Project Space, an independent, artist-run gallery in Kensington. I secured my internship by cold emailing Icebox to inquire about whether or not they  were open to hosting an intern, one of the co-curators, Tim Belknap, invited me to come see their current exhibition last winter, in December 2025. I saw the show, we had a brief meeting, and we were both fairly confident right off the bat that Icebox would be a good fit for me.

Throughout my spring season at Icebox, there were three different programs I got to participate in: an audiovisual experimentation series called Light and Sound, a collections research side project, and an annual video festival called 20/92. Icebox is an incredibly dynamic space, and patrons will find that the gallery space can look entirely different week-to-week depending on the current project.

During Light and Sound, which runs from late January to the end of March, Tim assembles an audiovisual platform using lighting design, video mixing, and an eight-foot-tall disco ball mounted on Icebox’s ceiling to bring in local performance artists, musicians, DJs, and anyone else attracted to the singularity of his platform to host events of every caliber. As an intern, working during Light and Sound looked meant getting hands-on coaching about how he does his AV set-up while a show is going. From there, I went on to independently run lights for upcoming performances, which was really exciting.

In between Light and Sound and the launch of their video festival, Tim and I worked on a side project he had going in Germantown – a curatorial project at the Madonna Art Museum. The Madonna Art Museum is an emergent religious art collection belonging to the Basilica Shrine of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in Germantown. After a preliminary appraisal and a visit from an expert in Renaissance art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tim and I were able to use available information to do further collections research and prepare for a grand opening event scheduled for mid-May.

By the end of April, I received my final assignment: cataloguing entries for Icebox’s annual 20/92 video festival. As an art history major most interested in contemporary art who was concurrently completing my thesis on a feature film, it was such a welcome task to see what emergent filmmakers are trying worldwide. I learned a lot of valuable curatorial lessons by sitting down with Tim and Logan to discuss not just the artistic merits of each individual piece, but how they would fit thematically with other films we were considering admitting and, most importantly, how they would suit the immersive environment of the Icebox’s screening room. I’m very excited to attend the festival in mid-May and see all the films in their final form!

I greatly enjoyed my time as an intern at Icebox, and it was such an affirming feeling to be in a space that is so aligned with my interests and goals for the future as I prepare to graduate and enter the working world. I’m so looking forward to continued involvement at Icebox during my post-graduate life, when I’ll be living in Philadelphia!