Securing the Museum

The Nasher Museum of Art, like the old Duke University art museum, allows students to be involved not as volunteers or as visitors, but as security guards.

Though this job opportunity may be a sharp departure from the usual lab technician or TA positions typically sought, it is nothing new to Kimberly Rorschach, Nasher’s new director. As a previous director of the art museum at the University of Chicago, Rorschach employed both graduate and undergraduate students as security guards, following the example of many other university art museums. Student security guards work under the supervision of adult security professionals and undergo extensive training.

As an undergraduate at the University of Chicago and a current graduate student at Duke’s English department, Matthew Irvin has worked at both institutions’ art museums. “We take care of security things like making sure the doors are shut, making sure people aren’t touching artwork,” Irvin says.

In six years, Irvin has not encountered anything too hazardous. “The most I’ve had to do is to ask the parent of a little child climbing on some artwork to bring her down.” Anything more threatening is reported to the Duke police.

In Rorschach’s more than ten years of experience working with university student security guards, she has found them to be “at least as good, if not better than a ‘professional’ security guard.” Anticipating Nasher’s opening Oct. 2, Rorschach is “looking forward to getting [the] student guards up to speed and working with them.”