Vital connections: increasing interest in museums among university students

It is evident that one of the most important issues for museums is to ensure community awareness and provide a valuable meaning within the community. The student run “Museum Appreciation Society” (MAS) at Macquarie University demonstrates a way that this link between students and the University Museums can be achieved. The MAS association attempts to achieve this by creating student activities including museum visits, hands on object lessons, talks, and networking through Facebook. MAS has been successful in developing a strong support network between students and the University museums. This was in accordance to MAS’s original purpose but recently has been altered to include external museums due to an expression of interest from its members. The MAS membership has substantially increased since its commencement in January 2009 .MAS members have diversified to include first to fourth year and international students. This has resulted in challenging MAS to including a broader spectrum of events that occur on and off campus . Due to this challenge MAS has become more successful at achieving their aim to raise awareness of museums amongst Macquarie university students.