The definition of museum is always changing. Whether a shrine (Sikes, 1992; Pope-Hennessy, 1994), a warehouse (Margolis, 1988), a market place (Sikes, 1992), an educational institution (Zeller, 1987; Hooper-Greenhill, 1990; Ballinger, 1993; Hein, G. 1998), or a contact zone (Clifford, 1997), the idea of a museum reflects the values of society.

What is actually reflected underneath the power of a museum's display is the philosophy of the museum staff. It is their belief, spoken or unspoken, that decides whether a museum should be a curiosity box, a history book, an adventure, or an unforgettable aesthetic experience. Becoming aware of the human element in museum settings has broadened my idea of the function of the art museum. I began to notice how the staff in art museums arranged objects. This led to my investigation of the education of museum professionals, wanting to know how they were trained and came to their beliefs.

The establishment of museum training programs is the result of the demands of museum realities. Each period of museum history marks its professionals' perceptions of museum practice. After the establishment of the American Association of Museums in 1906, training professionals for occupations in arts, library sciences, and museums became a focus in many universities (Spiess II, 1996a). Training museum professionals under appropriate disciplines in academic settings became a positive path for entering the museum field. In 19ffi, the first museum training programs were founded at the School of Industrial Art of the Pennsylvania Museum (now the Philadelphia Museum of Art). Museum studies programs have undertaken various reforms during the past century. Some museum professionals have insisted on providing a "discipline-based" entry training (Glaser & Zenetou, 1996). Alternatively, some believed in "nuts and bolts" programs that focused on general museology (McKelvey, 1977). These points of view have formed the fundamental development of museum studies programs and still hold true in the United States today.

The early museum establishment in the 1920s and 30s revealed the need for museum training programs. Leaders in museum fields laid out basic principles, qualifications, and training suggestions for museum studies programs. The belief that "A good museum person is born and not made"(Booth, cited in Glaser, 1990, p. 187) strongly ruled the museum field for more than three decades. It resulted in promoting museum work as scholarly and elite in nature and that only gifted persons were suitable for these high professions.

The growing number of museum studies programs in the 1960s and 70' s reflected the public's concern toward museums. Since there was great demand in the field of museum work, more universities created museum studies programs. A need for setting a standard museum studies curriculum became a major concern among museum professionals. N a result, in 1973, American Associations of Museums established the Museum Curriculum Committee to offer suggestions for museum training institutions (Glaser, 1990).

However, due to ongoing skepticism about whether training is necessary for a diverse museum environment, there has been continuous debate over the contents of museum studies programs in universities. Reynolds' question "Can you really be all things to all people-and if not, how do you teach students to deal with that in the communities in which they will work?"(Reynolds, cited in Spiess II, 1996b, p. 38) highlights the ambiguous relationship between the museum studies programs and the academic university setting.

Reynolds' concern (cited in Spiess II, 1996b) lingered and eventually became the core of my study. In this research, I decided to explore the specific nature of museum studies programs in academic settings. My primary research question is: According to current museum professionals, do art-related museum studies programs in the United States adequately serve the staffing needs of art museums?

To answer this question, I first established the current state of museum studies programs in United States. Specifically, I wanted to know their mission statements, how they trained their students in preparation for museum careers, and what the performance records of the graduates were in the real art museum world. In addition, I wanted to know the fundamental differences between a knowledge-driven museum studies program in universities and an experienced-based museum work place. What did museum professionals per:ceive their needs to be in terms of staff? Is there an imbalance between theories and practices? Ifso, what can museum studies program do, in both the long and short term, to help museum apprentices prepare for the actual art museum business?