SIAMS Faculty

The program is led by three faculty members and two course assistants. Guest lecturers will address special topics. The professional staff of the Smith College Museum of Art will introduce students to their departments and advise on the development of the class’s special exhibition.

Marion Goethals, Co-Director of SIAMS, served for many years as Deputy Director and Director of Programs at the Williams College Museum of Art.  She also taught art history and a January-term course in museum studies at Williams.  In 2004 she returned as Interim Director of the museum while a search for director was underway.  She is now a consultant on museum planning, collection management, and evaluating institutional effectiveness, based in Richmond, Virginia.  She holds a B.A. from Duke University and an M.A. from the Williams College Graduate Program in Art History and attended the Getty Foundation’s Museum Leadership Institute.  She has served as a trustee of the Association of College and University Museums and Galleries and the Williamstown Art Conservation Center and is currently on the Board of the Sagamore, An Adirondack Great Camp.

Two Graduate Assistants staff both the residential and the teaching components of the session.  They are either currently enrolled in graduate programs in art history or have recently completed a graduate degree.  In prior summers, Graduate Assistants have come from the Graduate Program in Art History at Williams College, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Tufts University.

Suzannah Fabing, Founder and Former Director of the Summer Institute in Art Museum Studies, has 40 years of experience working in museums. She served as Director and Chief Curator of the Smith College Museum of Art from 1992 until her retirement in June 2005. Prior to that, she was Head of the Division of Research on Collections at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, where she worked form 1983 to 1992. She began her professional career at the Fogg Art Museum of Harvard University, where she held a succession of curatorial and administrative positions from 1965 through 1982, ending as Deputy Director. Ms. Fabing holds the B.A. degree from Wellesley College and an M.A. from Harvard University. Her special research interest is classical bronze sculpture, a subject on which she has written and organized exhibitions.

While she was director of the Smith College Museum, Ms. Fabing taught a popular bi-annual museum studies seminar during Smith’s January Interterm. This three-week course was the precursor to the SIAMS program, which she has led since Summer 2006.