Humanity Helps Beloit College’s Museums Preserve History And Encourage Hands-On Education

Beloit College is a private liberal arts college in Beloit, Wisconsin with approximately 1,300 undergraduate students. As the oldest continuously operated college in its state, this college houses two prestigious museums, the Wright Museum of Art and the Logan Museum of Anthropology. Beloit College was founded in 1846 and these two museums were established in 1892 and 1893, respectively. Today, Beloit is recognized for its longstanding commitment to curricular innovation, and its first-year initiatives and international education programs.

In 1892, Helen Brace Emerson donated her personal collection of art to Beloit College and created its first program in art appreciation. Today, the Write Museum houses approximately 4,500 objects, including European and American prints and paintings, college portraits, 19th-century historic architecture photos, Soviet political propaganda posters and Asian decorative arts, icons and woodblock prints. The Logan Museum of Anthropology was founded in 1893 with a gift from Beloit College trustee Frank G. Logan of more than 3,000 artifacts that had been exhibited at the World’s Columbian Exposition. The museum’s collections have grown significantly over the years through additional gifts and purchases and through field expeditions by Beloit College faculty and students. Since it opened, the Logan Museum has focused on hands-on, educational use of collections. The Historical Memorial Hall was built in 1869 to honor Beloit College and community members who died in the Civil War, is the museum’s home.

Beloit College is dedicated to employing college students on work-study, which makes the staff scheduling process significantly more complicated. Each student’s work schedule is based on their availability between classes, extracurricular activities and personal needs. On top of that, schedules are further complicated with irregularities like exams, field trips, illnesses, and breaks, which means schedules can change even at a moment’s notice.

Before Humanity, the museums were juggling 22 student employees on a single Google Calendar. Students would fill out a paper form indicating their availability, and this could be compiled into a master “availability sheet” comprised of all the students and hours needing staff would be created. Then, on Google Calendar, time slots would be created and student hours would be totaled to keep a fair number of hours and to avoid exceeding the maximum number of work hours for each student. When a student could not work their allocated shift, they needed to email other employees and find a shift trade. Once they decided on a shift trade, they had to email the manager so she could confirm and change the master Google Calendar. This was time-consuming and required more communication than necessary.

Since switching to Humanity, the staff has found a significant reduction in the number of glitches. They have also found Humanity to be cleaner and easier to use, saving both paper and time in the process. Staff and students find the application to be very efficient and agree that Humanity keeps everyone up on their schedule. The automatic communication of schedules and the Message Wall to post reminders have ensured that all student workers are aware of the schedule and the shifts they are working. With more accurate staff scheduling, managers spend less time trying to find replacements for shifts or filling open shifts.

The Humanity team appreciates the work done at the Beloit College museums and their dedication to preserving history and hiring student employees. We are delighted to help them with their staff scheduling process and needs.