Nicole Kowrach grew up traveling from Michigan to the Chicago area to visit museums. But she only began considering working in a museum as a college student, after she switched her focus from biology to anthropology and her dad asked what she would do with an anthropology degree.
In October, Kowrach’s interest in museums and history led her to the role of executive director at the Evanston History Center, housed inside the Charles Gates Dawes House.
“All of the content and museum skills that I bring to the table really fit in here, even though it is very much focused on Evanston, the Evanston community and Evanston history,” Kowrach said.
In her previous job at the Chicago Architecture Center, Kowrach was responsible for coordinating public programming, including lectures, youth programs and overseeing exhibitions.
Her first role in the museum world was in Ann Arbor, Michigan at an institution similar in size to the EHC. Kowrach said she started in a role focused on community education programs, before progressing into a leadership role in the museum’s education programming.
“I moved into progressively higher leadership roles, and that’s true in each of these different jobs where I was no longer myself the one developing and delivering those programs, but overseeing the teams and the strategic thinking about what should those programs and exhibits be like,” she said.
Kowrach said that when she saw the EHC job and the opportunity to blend her museum experience with some of her personal passions — historical costuming and houses — she couldn’t pass it up. The Dawes House museum includes tours of the historic home, exhibits on Evanston history and the second-largest costume collection in Illinois.
When the EHC began the process of hiring a new director, Board of Trustees President Matthew Struve said the museum sought someone with a passion for history, experience in the educational sphere and an ability to draw the Evanston community into the museum.
“We needed to find somebody that was really a museum nerd and somebody who had museum experience,” Struve said. “We wanted to find somebody who was going to be able to grow in the position. We needed somebody that we felt could learn.”
Struve added that, during the hiring process, staff were invited to ask the finalists questions.
Kris Hartzell, director of facilities, visitor services and collections, said she felt hiring someone who could collaborate well with the current team was important for the role.
“We’re a very small staff, and we do a lot of Yeoman duty, so it’s very important,” Hartzell said. “A lot of times, things overlap — you can’t farm something out to the 12 people underneath you. So you’ve got to be collaborative, or you’re not going to get very far.”
About a month into her new role, Kowrach said she has been figuring out her goals for the center. To start, she said, she wanted to explore more opportunities for youth engagement. She also expressed interest in making the archives and costume collections more accessible to the Evanston community.
She emphasized wanting to keep a constant public presence in the museum and getting the word out to the community about what the space has to offer.
“I’m really excited to be here with this team of experts in public programming and conservation and preservation,” Kowrach said. “To be in this historic space every day, coming to work, unlocking that front door, is just an amazing feeling. And I’m super excited about what we’ll be able to do here together.”
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