Juilee Decker
Associate Professor
Juilee Decker
Associate Professor
Education
BA, Wittenberg University; MA, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign; Ph.D., Case Western Reserve University
Bio
Dr. Juilee Decker (she/her/hers) is an Associate Professor of History and Director of the Museum Studies program in the College of Liberal Arts.
Trained as an art historian, Dr. Decker's research and scholarship are at the intersection of museum studies, public history, and public art. She is an author, scholar, facilitator, and collaborator in the academy as well as in cultural institutions and communities. Since 2008, she has served as editor of Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals, a peer-reviewed journal published by SAGE. In 2015, she edited the four-volume series Innovative Approaches for Museums which brought together research and practices in the areas of engagement, access, technology, collections care and stewardship, as well as fundraising and strategic planning. In 2017, she revised Museums in Motion: An Introduction to the History and Functions of Museums, a cornerstone publication in museum studies. Her 4th edition of the book is forthcoming in 2023.
Beyond the work described above, Dr. Decker's research excavates histories and functions of museums and memorials as part of the process of understanding and critiquing constructions of knowledge and public memory in the U.S. Her monograph Enid Yandell: Kentucky's Pioneer Sculptor was published by the University Press of Kentucky in 2019. She is currently working on two projects related to monuments, memorials, and memory—which is also an area of her teaching (HIST 322, offered in the spring).
Dr. Decker has curated/co-curated numerous exhibitions focusing on art, material culture, and public history and has served as a consultant to public art projects and programs in the U.S. The exhibition Crafting Democracy: Fiber Arts & Activism (co-curated with Hinda Mandell) debuted in Rochester in June 2019 and will continue to travel to venues in New York, Ohio, and Virginia through 2020.
Dr. Decker has served on the Board of the National Susan B. Anthony Museum and House and is a juror for the Education Committee of the American Alliance of Museums. She earned her Ph.D. in 2003 from the joint program in Art History and Museum Studies at Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Prior to joining the faculty of RIT in 2014, Dr. Decker taught at Georgetown College.
Select Scholarship
Currently Teaching
In the News
-
January 22, 2021
Partnership provides internships at state's largest living history museum
Students Devin Hull and Sophie Walter are using their creativity to expand ongoing digital efforts of the Genesee Country Village & Museum.
-
June 23, 2020
RIT building imaging systems to help libraries and museums uncover lost texts
Scientists from RIT are developing affordable imaging systems to help libraries and museums preserve and expand access to their historical collections. The project, funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, aims to create a low-cost spectral imaging system and software that can be used to recover obscured and illegible text on historical documents.
-
March 5, 2020
Podcast: Living History at the Genesee Country Village & Museum
Intersections: The RIT Podcast, Ep. 33: Community partnerships are one way RIT provides its students with experiential learning opportunities. James Winebrake, dean of the College of Liberal Arts, and Juilee Decker, associate professor of museum studies, talk about a unique partnership between the college and one of the Finger Lakes Region’s cultural gems, the Genesee Country Village & Museum.