Building a Pipeline of Future Museum Professionals

By Lindsey Wurz featuring Cielo Aguilera

Recognizing the industry-wide need to offer paid positions to undergraduate and graduate students and students of color, Intuit in 2021 launched the Emerging Museum Professional Fellowship—initially the Summer Fellowship—in June with funding from the Field Foundation.

Intuit designed the Fellowship for undergraduate and graduate students of color attending school in Chicago with backgrounds that have traditionally been underrepresented in the industry. The museum field is no stranger to unpaid internships, and neither is Intuit. The museum has long offered unpaid internships and depends on the support of its volunteers. However, unpaid internships can act as a barrier to students who do not have the resources to offer their labor without compensation. Paid opportunities like the IntuiTeens summer internship and, now, the Emerging Museum Professional Fellowship open doors for students interested in advancing their career in the arts.

Throughout the eight-week program, the Fellow is introduced to all facets of museum work, including curation, collections, education, marketing, development and executive leadership. They work closely with senior managers and contribute to meaningful projects that advance the institution, while learning about and discussing with staff contemporary issues in the museum field.

Those eligible to apply for the position are undergraduate and graduate students of color enrolled in city, community or state colleges with an interest in pursuing a career in the arts. Paula Santos, senior manager of learning and engagement, designed the fellowship to be available to all eligible students and, thus, developed a program agenda to accommodate remote work for those who were unable to commute to the museum.

The pool of applicants included students studying a range of subjects, including art education, English and museum studies. Among them was Cielo Aguilera, an emerging art educator who recently graduated from Morton College with her associate’s degree in fine arts. Aguilera, who identifies as Mexican American, is now at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign completing her bachelor’s degree in art education. She discovered the Fellowship when searching for opportunities to get involved with her artistic and creative side. Aguilera had worked as a pharmacy technician throughout her time at Morton College and sought opportunities that more closely aligned with her passion for education.

“I came across a list of fellowships, and Intuit came up. I never heard of Intuit, and I started looking into the website and became really interested right off the bat,” said Aguilera. “I saw how…it’s very focused on education. I saw not only the fellowship but the Teacher Fellowship Program, as well, and the mission statement really drew me in.”

The museum’s mission—to celebrate the power of outsider art—is grounded in the ethos that powerful art can be found in unexpected places and made by unexpected creators.

When researching Intuit, its mission and its programs, Aguilera found the museum welcoming: “[Intuit] wanted Black, Indigenous, people of color in the museum space and, for me, I felt like, ‘Okay, this is a space that I can feel comfortable in.’”

Santos selected Aguilera for the inaugural fellowship, noting her past experiences in public facing roles, her interest in art and museum education, her goals for the fellowship, and her goals for her future career in the arts.

Throughout her tenure at Intuit, Aguilera focused primarily on education, though she still participated in staff meetings and professional development opportunities in which she gleaned insights into the museum’s departments. Aguilera shared that, although she did not work closely with the development team, she learned a lot about how museums are funded—through donations, grants and earned revenue.

Her education background in fine arts, professional interests in museum education, and past volunteer experiences as an arts educator at Prairieview-Ogden South Elementary School and the Ryan Learning Center at the Art Institute of Chicago proved to be invaluable as she supported many of the museum’s educational initiatives. Aguilera joined Santos and museum educator Mayra Palafox as a facilitator for the IntuiTeens, a summer youth internship program dedicated to fostering intuitive creativity and leadership skills in Chicago teenagers.

“I took a lot away from both of their teaching styles,” Aguilera commented. From Palafox’s teaching in particular, Aguilera shared: “I learned that it’s okay if the students don’t respond right away; it’s okay to give that space and give them that time to think. They will eventually come around…they’ll be able to develop their own answer and feel more comfortable.”

Aguilera’s facilitation of the IntuiTeens program was the first time she led teenagers, and she spoke to how they invested themselves in the work. She noted “how [the teens are] thinking about museum spaces and the impact it has on them and the changes they want to see…is insightful for museums.” She observed of the IntuiTeens: “It is somewhere you can gain knowledge and experience.”

Aguilera supported the museum in the production of three virtual field trips, spotlighting pieces in the museum’s collection by the artists Mr. Imagination, Judith Scott and Emery Blagdon. Furthermore, she led a virtual Art After Work in which she shared her research on the art and life of Emery Blagdon.

“I was mind blown by how much [Blagdon] dedicated his life to this project and…created this world. I was drawn to him because he was thinking [about] how we’re connected to energy, and he was drawn to the earth and the earth has these restorative and curative powers,” Aguilera said. “He was taking healing from a different perspective, which is trying to immerse yourself into both the physical things around you, and the energy that those things possess, and your connection to your environment and your space.”

In reflection, Aguilera spoke to her favorite moments at Intuit and her takeaways from the fellowship. In addition to the environment of collaboration, Aguilera identified her main takeaway as seeing herself as a museum professional in the future. “Intuit helped me see parts of me that I wasn’t able to see; it diminished those doubts that I had about what I was doing. It further solidified the path that I am taking, and now I see that there’s a whole world I want to explore that Intuit has opened me up to.”

Aguilera will complete her art education studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the fall of 2022, after which she is open to exploring her next steps. She wants to teach in schools and is interested in pursuing a master’s degree in museum studies. Aguilera hopes to someday own a studio in her hometown of Cicero, Ill. As for Intuit, the museum will begin recruitment for the next cycle in the spring of 2022.