Student Docents | Mandeville Gallery

Student Docent Program

Inaugurated in the fall of 2013, the Student Docent Program offers a unique work experience in a collegiate art gallery. Each student docent acts as a liaison between the gallery and its visitors, providing information and insight into the exhibitions on view in the gallery. Through our docent’s knowledgeable and enthusiastic interaction with these audiences, each docent becomes a facilitator of learning, building on visitor interest, in an effort to create lasting audiences for the visual arts at Union College and beyond.

Student Docent Talks

The Mandeville Gallery has further developed the Student Docent Program to give student docents a platform to offer insights about their interpretations of each exhibition, as it relates to their own research, interests, and personal experiences, as students of Union College. For each new exhibition, docents attend a tour with either the exhibiting artist(s) or with the gallery director.

Docents then individually construct discussions around particular artworks, that develop into short, 10-minute presentations that encourage audience participation and contemplation. These Student Docent Talks collectively highlight artworks, artists, and themes from the current exhibition and are free and open to the public.

Maymunah Ahmed

Class of 2023

Hello! My name is Maymunah Ahmed and I am a biology major and visual arts minor at Union College. As an art enthusiast, the mediums I enjoy are oil paintings, mixed media, and digital art. At the Mandeville Gallery, I am excited to see a diverse range of artworks presented.

Athanasia Kytoudi

Class of 2023

Hello! My name is Athanasia Kytoudi and I am an international student form Greece. I am a senior majoring in Studio Fine Arts and minoring in Spanish. I started working for the UCPC and the Mandeville Gallery during the summer of 2022 where I got to experience the professional and administrative side of exhibitions and collections, learn about art handling, correct archival materials, and understand the different perspectives of different types of artworks. Continuing to work for the Mandeville Gallery as a student docent truly excites me and I cannot wait for all the new qualities I will learn and come to acquire.

Sophie Brown

Class of 2023

Hi, my name is Sophie Brown. I am a senior Visual Arts Major with a dual concentration in Art History and Studio Fine Arts. I am on the women’s tennis team, and a two time ITA scholar athlete recipient. I am also a member of the Delta Phi Epsilon sorority, as well as the Garnet Society. I have been involved in performing and visual arts for many years, and am looking forward to working at the Mandeville!

Lydia McElroy

Class of 2023

Hi! My name is Lydia McElroy and I am a senior philosophy major from New York City.

I think we are so lucky to have the Mandeville Gallery in such a central location on the Union College campus, so I was really excited to get involved in the student docent program this year! I recently transferred to Union from McGill University, where I had a curatorial role in a McGill gallery club that displayed student art. Here at Union, much of my studies take place within the art history department, as well as the visual art department, so working for the gallery not only combines these interests of mine, but brings my education outside of the classroom in a way I find very rewarding.

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