Robin was Program Administrator and Internship Coordinator for the Museum Studies Program, 1988-2008
Remembering the late Robin Breon, friend, mentor and guardian of the arts.
In his two decades with the Museum Studies Program, Robin Breon committed himself to student success. As an administrator and internship coordinator, he developed and maintained relationships with diverse members of the museum community and secured funding to support work experience opportunities for students.
One of his proudest achievements was securing a major donation from philanthropist David Campbell, says Breon’s wife Joan Simalchik, professor emerita at the University of Toronto. The Vivian and David Campbell Family Foundation Summer Training Fellowships were established in the late nineties after Heritage Canada cut a program which had supported student internships.
Breon and others in the Museum Studies program staff worked with art galleries, museums and science centres to ensure the survival of internships. David Campbell and others were invited to participate in a series of casual lunches with students to learn more about them and to answer questions about the role of private collectors. The fellowships created continue to fund student internships.
Breon, who began working in Museum Studies in 1988, came to the program with a multidisciplinary background, having worked as an English and Drama teacher, actor and playwright, independent arts journalist and an arts administrator for the New Shakespeare Company and Black Theatre Canada. “Robin called Museum Studies a gem of a program,” says Simalchik.
Breon also worked closely with the late University Professor Ursula Franklin, who was briefly the director of the Museum Studies program. Together, they spearheaded innovative equity and diversity workshops that left a lasting impact on students and anchored the broader museum community in a positive direction.
Breon is remembered by former colleagues and alumni as being quintessential to the Museum Studies program. “Robin got me first real museum job,” says Jeremy Roop (Class of ‘98), now Program Advisor at Parks Canada. He remembers Breon welcoming him at the front door on his first day. “I always found him to be helpful, curious and supportive […] always smiling and joyful.”
