Museum Specialist – Education (Half-Time)

Are you enthusiastic about the Driftless Area and local history, and interested in sharing this place with people from around the world? The Mining & Rollo Jamison Museums | City of Platteville is now recruiting for a half-time Museum Specialist in Education. The position will develop, implement, and evaluate a wide range of educational programs for students, teachers, families, and life-long learners that bring the Museum's mission and vision to life. This is a permanent, year-round, half-time (20 hrs/wk) position, offering a minimum starting hourly wage of $18.74, based on relevant experience.

The Mining & Rollo Jamison Museums is a department of the City of Platteville as well as a mission-driven membership and entrepreneurial organization. The Mining & Rollo Jamison Museums are the eastern bookend of the Main Street business district in Platteville. The Museum campus includes scenic greenspace, pollinator gardens, a real underground mine from the pre-Civil War Lead Rush, a railroad amusement ride pulled by a 1931 mine locomotive, and picturesque interpretive structures listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Museum celebrates Wisconsin’s know-how and can-do spirit as expressed in the mining region where Wisconsin and its Badger State identity was born. Since its founding in 1965, the Museum has welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors, a third of them school children. The Museum is Platteville’s leading tourist attraction and the largest in the tri-state area (Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa) interpreting the mineral heritage of the famous Upper Mississippi Valley district.

Key Responsibilities

• Coordinate special events for the general public, and implement educational programming for school groups by designing and leading group visitor experiences — both in-person and virtual — for K-12 students, their chaperones, and their teachers.
• Develop, design, implement, and evaluate interdisciplinary, age-appropriate education resources that create connections with the Museum’s permanent collection, exhibitions on view, and classroom materials
• Oversee the school field trip program by designing and leading group visitor experiences both in person and virtual- for K-12 students, their chaperones, and their teachers
• Develop curriculum and participatory programming aligned with the museum’s initiatives
• In cooperation with the Museum Director and other Museum staff, oversee the design, production, pricing, marketing, distribution, and delivery of digital education content, including videos and online courses, teaching kits, and other innovative media.
• Generate new tour and special event content. Help to implement new events. Manages new and existing special events and programs as assigned.
• Operate and handle all aspects of train amusement ride including daily safety check, taking and returning train from stored location, and driving train with guest passengers.
• Working some weekends, evenings and holidays is required.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree and minimum of 3-5 years of teaching and instructing experience in education.
• Familiarity with Wisconsin K-12 standards and curriculum frameworks.
• Some understanding of history, science, museums, and/or arts education. 
• Ability to prepare and deliver lectures, interview, advise people, and evaluate data.
• Ability to communicate effectively, verbally or in writing, with visitors for museum tours, general public for inquiries, supplies/vendors for store inventory, community or trade/professional organizations for museum professional growth.

How to Apply

Please submit a current resume, cover letter, and completed City of Platteville Employment Application (available in the Supporting Document below) to Erik Flesch, Museum Director, via email at museumdirector@platteville.org  or by mail to the address below. Applications will be accepted until the position is full.

The Mining & Rollo Jamison Museums

Attn: Museum Director

PO Box 780

Platteville, WI 53818

For questions, please contact:

Erik Flesch, Museum Director

(608) 348-1837  or museumdirector@platteville.org