UNM’s Political Science Department has partnered with the New Mexico Holocaust and Intolerance Museum to allow students the opportunity to earn up to three hours of political science credit for an unpaid internship.
The museum has no state or federal funding, instead relying on volunteers, museum representative Jerry Small said.
The museum stands not only as a reminder that genocide has not stopped but as a teaching mechanism for visitors to understand the genocides and intolerance throughout history and into the present, he said.
Even in reference to the city of Albuquerque, he said there were many issues that need to be faced.
“We’re considered to be very diverse. That doesn’t mean we are together – we’re just diverse.” Small said. “This is not as harmonious as you would think, and we need to create an umbrella that people can come under and start talking about whatever it is that they need to talk about.”
The museum has many forms of education with its exhibits and guest speakers. There have been a number of guests, including Holocaust survivors, who came to speak in person as well as through Skype.
Along with the exhibits and guest speakers, the museum also has a library that students can access with books for both children and adults.
The Silvian Library and Study Center was named after the Silvian foundation, Small said, which has donated grants to the museum throughout the years, as the founder himself was an immigrant.
Volunteers have the opportunity not only to access the library but also potentially work on the exhibits that the museum showcases, he said. One such volunteer who was involved in the exhibits was Kendra Poole, a student volunteer who returned years later to work for the museum.
Poole, who is now assistant to the director of the museum, said she began as a high school student volunteer while attending Valley High School in Albuquerque.
Poole said she eventually went on to earn her bachelor’s degree in English and creative writing in Washington DC, but after traveling and working in politics, Poole returned to the museum.
“I was very fascinated with their message. I wanted to get involved. I wanted to be part of it,” she said.
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Poole said she returned to the museum because after traveling she was inspired by recent events, and found that education rather than politics was a more direct path to change.
As a volunteer she partnered with a fellow volunteer and created the Rwanda exhibit.
“I was passionate to let our visitors know genocide is not just an isolated incident, that it can occur in our lifetime,” she said, adding that the museum is seeking volunteers for future exhibits.
“Step out of your comfort zone, donate not just time but your talent, perspectives and opinions,” Poole said.
An upcoming exhibit that the museum plans to open will be titled “Massive Shootings in the U.S., 1984 to 2016.”
He explained that the exhibit would be interactive for visitors.
“There will be a book with pictures of the students,...police, and bios, and you can quietly read it, and then there will be another book where you can write your thoughts and your feelings,” he said.
Small said this is one of the ways the museum gets to be interactive with its visitors, as well as educational.
“You come into a place like this and there has to be a mechanism to express what you’re seeing. When you watch the news, you think, ‘how do we deal with this?’ And this is our way,” he said.
Students interested in knowing more about the internship or volunteering can contact Ellen Grigsby at the Political Science Department. This internship is open to majors and non-majors, she said.
“I’ve had a number of students participate in this internship over the years and it has been a wonderful learning experience for them,” she said.
Grigsby said she would love to see more students interning at the museum and working to educate the community about the Holocaust and about intolerance.
The first UNM student volunteer of the semester is Kennedy Wright Montoya, who is majoring in political science. Montoya had his first day last week.
He said the staff was extremely nice and the exhibits are well done.
The learning experience was vastly different from a classroom experience because the museum exhibits helped connect you to the people involved in the history of genocide and intolerance more personally, he said.
Montoya said he waited all summer for the internship and encourages others to come stop by and check the museum out.
“You learn stories about people, not statistics. You learn not just numbers but who they were,” he said. “I can’t wait to learn about everything.”
