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Giving Highlight: WAM Student Engagement Fund
Visitors chat about artwork in the gallery
Many of the students who visit the Weisman's galleries are first-time art museum-goers. WAM's student engagement programs serve as a vital entry point for the next generation of arts enthusiasts.

This spring, our Colleagues Advisory Board (CAB) is thrilled to be matching gifts to support the Student Engagement Fund! Students play a vital role in museum life, and this fund supports student leadership opportunities like the Student Tour Guide Program. This WAM-specific program trains students to facilitate meaningful conversations about art through curiosity, dialogue, and creative inquiry.

Two WAM Student Guides stand in the Riverview Gallery in front of the landmark iron pour wall sculpture of the Mississippi River

We invite you to join us in generosity as we invest in the students whose inquiry-based tours alter perspectives and foster empathy.

The CAB will match the first $25,000 given, and your gift of $100, $500, or $1,000 will become $200, $1,000, or $2,000 of total impact. Your generosity accelerates our ability to serve students and support their development as leaders and young professionals.

Give Today & Double Your Impact

Two portraits, at left a Black femme-presenting person with braids and a scarf and, at right, a masculine-presenting person with a black embroidered shirt and short beard

Meet Ricki and Luis!

Meet Ricki, Public Engagement & Learning Coordinator, who leads WAM’s Student Tour Guide Program, and Luis, Learning Assistant, who mentors and coaches the student guides day-to-day. Together, they cultivate a supportive environment where guides build confidence and facilitation skills through Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), using open-ended questions to spark dialogue and curiosity. Guides center visitors’ observations and lived experiences, adding context only after conversation unfolds. 

 

 

Visitors crowd around an artwork to look closely together


Together, Ricki and Luis are growing the program’s reach — expanding the guide team, serving more tour groups, and bringing student-led facilitation beyond the museum walls and into the community. Student guides and the many other students involved at the museum have inspired WAM’s Colleagues Advisory Board (CAB) to match gifts to the Student Engagement Fund. 

Join Ricki and Luis in building a future where student guides are equipped to be art facilitators inside and outside the museum, altering perspectives and fostering empathy.
 

Two femme presenting people standing side by side, looking out and talking about what they see


Give Now to Double Your Impact on Student Programs at WAM

We are grateful that you are part of the WAM community, and we look forward to having our student guides welcome you to an environment where all can engage with art at the museum and beyond!
 

 

Visitors, backs facing the camera and seated on a bench together, looking at a bank of screens showing video art

 

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