THE UNIVERSITY MUSEUM CURATOR IS IN

Dr. Jennifer Strayer decided Southeast Missouri State University was the place to begin her teaching career when she heard the way members of the faculty talk about their students.

"I've never been at an institution where the faculty knew the first names, the last names and something about their students," she says.

Strayer, who just began work as the new curator of the University Museum, at first suspected this familiarity was an act.

"Then I saw that this university does value its students and helps recognize the special talents students have," she said.

"... I saw that you can invest yourself in being a good teacher and you will be recognized."

Born in Monroe, Mich., the birthplace of Gen. George Custer and the La-Z Boy recliner, Strayer is a fellow Midwesterner who smiles at all the Southeast Missouri friendliness she has encountered.

"In the supermarket or at the gas station, people strike up a conversation about anything," she said, a bit amazed.

Strayer has a brand new Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Iowa. American Studies is an interdisciplinary program that views culture from the perspective of art, history, architecture and anthropology, among other specialties.

Previously, she studied architecture at the University of Illinois-Chicago, nearly completing another graduate degree. In Chicago, the Promised Land for someone interested in museums and galleries, she realized she didn't want to live behind a drawing board.

Her dissertation at the University of Iowa delved into the struggle for cultural influence in Chicago, and dealt specifically with the 1933-34 World's Fair.

Thus the University Museum's collection of classical statuary, plaster works that were displayed at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904, especially intrigues her.

"World's Fairs are perfectly suited to an American Studies approach," she says. "I'm hoping to do more with the statuary here."

Don't expect any big changes soon at the museum, which only recently reopened after closing for six months during an elevator installation. Former curator Pat Reagan-Woodard left the everything in fine shape, Strayer said.

Reagan-Woodard took a leave of absence during the elevator construction, and with the spring semester will begin teaching art at the university full time. Besides directing the museum, Strayer will teach art part-time.

As her training would suggest, Strayer believes in displaying contextual materials along with objects. Those who attend future exhibitions might find them accompanied by video clips or oral histories.

One area she hopes to explore fully is the use of the museum as a training ground for people in a variety of departments -- art, historic preservation, anthropology and even business.

Business students can learn about fund raising and development issues at a museum, she said.

"They are places where students learn but they also serve as training sites," she said. "You are training students intellectually and preparing them for future careers by promoting ideas of experiential learning."

A university museum ought to serve the broader community as well, Strayer says. One of her first jobs will be to find out how teachers use the museum as a resource.

A university museum should serve as an example, Strayer says, both by showcasing exemplary work and fostering volunteerism and civic-mindedness.

"Museums depend on the goodwill of the community," she says.

She and her husband, Greg Jones, have bought an old house in downtown Cape Girardeau. Jones, an artist who coordinated the art studio at the University of Iowa, is going to be in the house restoration business for awhile.

Perhaps because people have been friendly, Southeast Missouri at this point seems Southern to Strayer. "The texture of life is a little different from what I'm used to," she says. "It's a familiar place but it's not."