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Community Partners


The El Paso and greater Borderlands region is home to an extraordinary array of museums, galleries, archives, historic sites, national parks, and cultural heritage institutions. One of the strongest components of the UTEP Museum Studies program is the for-credit Internship course (ART 4339) that places MUSE students in one of these community partner institutions for a professionally transformative on-site, semester-long immersion. These Internships give our students hands-on training in real-world institutions and build out their professional portfolios, while also providing our community partners with the opportunity to get to know our extraordinary students and benefit from their strengths, creativity, intellect, and dedication.

Below is a non-exhaustive list of our active Community Partners, who have either served as Site Placements for past MUSE Internships or who are interested in serving as Placement Site in the future:

  • UTEP Library Special Collections
  • UTEP Office of Institutional Advancement
  • Tom Lea Institute
  • The Rubin Center for the Visual Arts
  • Mexican American Cultural Center
  • Magoffin Home State Historic Site
  • Los Portales Museum + Old County Jail
  • La Nube Steam Discovery Center
  • The International Museum of Art
  • Hueco Tanks State Park + Historic Site
  • The Falstaff
  • El Paso Museum of History
  • El Paso Museum of Art
  • El Paso Museum of Archaeology
  • Chamizal National Memorial
  • The Centennial Museum

Our connections with these institutions and others extend well beyond the formal ART 4339 Internship course We encourage our students to volunteer with these community partners, many have served as Host Institutions for our Student Designed Exhibitions from the MUSE Capstone course, and a number now count MUSE alumni among their key staff and curators.

If you are a leader of a community heritage organization who would like to be involved in the MUSE program or serve as a Placement Site for future for-credit Museum Studies Internships, please reach out to Dr. Strauss at smstrauss@utep.edu.

Connect With Us

The University of Texas at El Paso
Museum Studies Program, Department of Art
Fox Fine Arts A354
500 W University
El Paso, Texas 79968
Director: Stephanie M. Strauss, Ph.D.

E: smstrauss@utep.edu
P: (915) 747-5181