The role of university museums in engineering education

Abstract

The subject of the article is the activity of museums that exist in many universities. Apart from collecting, protecting and propagating the heritage of a given university, their primary task is to enrich teaching by focusing on humanistic and educational facets, especially in relation to the promotion of the university, its history and selected aspects of science. These activities refer not only to the university community, but extend far beyond it. In this respect, university museums have a centuries-old tradition. The author presents the educational role of university museums based on the example of the activities of the Museum of Cracow University of Technology (CUT), Kraków, Poland. The Museum’s mission was defined as heritage and identity protection. It collaborates with many museums, including university museums. Although the history of individual universities is different as are the contemporary profiles of their teaching and research activities, their museums conduct similar activities