Rebecca Brand, a UNT Art Education graduate student, was selected as the 2017/18 Onstead Institute / Crow Collection Fellow in Museum Education. Before beginning her fellowship, Brand had already spent 6 months in 2017 volunteering with the museum’s Breathe: Veterans Art and Wellness Program. Growing up in an army family, Brand has a deep passion for working with veterans, specifically exploring ways art can provide healing and expression as well as bring people together. During her fellowship Brand continued working with the Breathe Program, developing art making activities for the group and teaching during workshops. In addition, she taught numerous school tours and programs and assisted in developing lesson plans and art activities for various educational programs and events. Following her fellowship Brand was hired as the Coordinator for the Breathe Program and continues to provide programming for local veterans at the museum.

Regarding her time at the museum, Brand reflected, “As a Fellow at the Crow Collection, I was able to, essentially, build my own dream job for two semesters. While I am deeply passionate about serving our veteran population in museums, school programs in museums (and out of the museum, like with Crow 360) are fun and also incredibly important to me. My family went to museums and historic sites everywhere we were stationed, so I grew up around these cultural institutions, but never experienced museum education tours (without pure lectures) until college. I'm fortunate that both of my parents fostered curiosity in me, and I think going to so many museums helped in that as well. It is my goal in each tour I lead to empower individuals and foster creativity and curiosity, whether they are children or war veterans, and I learned how to do that during my time at the Crow Collection of Asian Art, and as such, I am honored to continue working with the Breathe program.”