Worcester Art Museum: Creation of a Green Cafe

Museums are so important to their communities. They share culture, learning and innovation with new audiences every day. The Worcester Art Museum is a staple of the Worcester community and the second largest art museum in New England! Worcester is also home to 12 colleges and universities and the Worcester Art Museum (WAM) is looking to attract this demographic in new and exciting ways.

Throughout this term we will be working with the Worcester Art Museum to discover new ways to increase the museum’s attraction to the 18-21 demographic by interviewing and surveying several populations. We want to know what the current visitors and staff love about the museum and what it has to offer as well as ways that it can improve its strategies to attract visitors. We also want to know how Worcester college students feel about the museum and what would appeal to them!

WAM is looking to utilize our research to understand what components of sustainability they should add into their museum cafe that would appeal to new visitors. WAM has recently expanded their institution’s movement toward sustainability and they look forward to share this movement with their cafe!

Student Researchers

Katie Coutu is an Industrial Engineering major in her junior year at WPI. She is from Lincoln, Rhode Island. She is a chairperson on the school’s Social Committee and is a member of Phi Sigma Sigma sorority. She is the Student Team Lead at WPI’s Career Development Center and is currently a Business Analysis Intern at a large investment firm in Rhode Island. Katie loves spending time shopping and hanging out with her friends especially her dog Charlie and her new puppy Bentley (pictured right).

Tynan MacLeod (left) is a Groton, MA native who is double majoring in Biomedical Engineering and Electrical & Computer Engineering. Now in his junior year at WPI, he is a member of the Men’s Varsity Soccer team and a brother of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. He also works as a Campus Center Building Manager on the WPI campus.

Tristan Richardson is a Biomedical Engineering major concentrating in Biomaterials/ Tissues with a minor in Biology and Spanish in his junior year at WPI. He is from North Attelboro, MA. He is a brother of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity as well as a member of the Men’s Soccer team and the Track and Field team. He has been a Campus Center Building Manager for the past two years. Tristan loves soccer,  beluga whales (pictured right), his dog, Finnegan, and is a self-diagnosed shopaholic.

 Samuel Teatum is a junior at WPI, currently majoring Mechanical  Engineering, and working towards a minor in Theatre. With his mix of  creativity and technical skills, he enrolled at WPI to pursue his life’s goal: to go into business inventing things that make the world a better place. He is currently performing a minor role in WPI’s upcoming  student production of Inherit the Wind, and serving as Vice President of the Society of Medieval Arts and  Sciences, a club revolving around medieval crafts and simulated combat. In his free time, Sam enjoys  making sculptures, telling stories, and playing tabletop games with his friends.

Stay with us as we update our web page with our research and experiences over the next few months and do not forget to visit the Worcester Art Museum on Salisbury Street. See you there!