Cooperstown Graduate Program

The Cooperstown Campus: Students in this full-time, residential program attend classes in Cooperstown, a village 25 miles northeast of Oneonta. They benefit from small class sizes and a high faculty-to-student ratio. This allows students to get to know and work closely with professors, who are leaders and innovators in the field. The Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums and the headquarters of New York State History Day are on the CGP campus and provide students with opportunities to network with professionals and refine their skills. Although CGP itself is a small program, as an academic departament of SUNY Oneonta, its students have access to all the resources of a much larger state university system. Real-world projects with partner institutions including the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum, the Arkell Museum, Hanford Mills Museum, Hyde Hall State Historic Site, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, and the Little Falls Historical Society extend the CGP learning environment still further.

Program history: Founded in 1964, the Cooperstown Graduate Program is one of the oldest museum studies graduate programs in the country. Many of its more than 1,000 alumni have attained prominence in museums and related fields as directors, educators, curators, or programming specialists. In 2011, CGP moved into its new home, one of the only buildings in the world designed specifically for museum studies. A few years later, in 2015, the history museum studies curriculum was expanded to include a science museum studies track. The science museum studies track is the first master’s program of its kind in the United States. Both the history and science tracks have generalist curriculums, so students explore many aspects of museum work.

Program Mission: The Cooperstown Graduate Program trains creative, entrepreneurial museum leaders committed to programs for the public good.

Premises:

Museums should be essential community institutions dedicated to community service.
Museum boards, staffs, collections, and programs should reflect the diversity of their communities and be welcoming to and respectful of all people. Our diversity is a strength.
Museum experiences focus on human interactions and storytelling. We use ideas, artifacts, living collections, media, and phenomena as catalysts for social discourse.
Museum work is grounded in curiosity and scholarship—the study of science, history, art, and culture. CGP graduates are scholar professionals dedicated to services and programs supported by research.
Successful museums operate with the discipline of business and simultaneously balance money and mission to ensure institutional sustainability and a rich quality of life in their communities.

Programs

Master of Arts