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By Ellen Shubart, Class of 2008

You’ve probably “met” Lexie online, having received either an email with The Bridge entries on a Friday, or gotten an email about your next tour, or a reply to request for a change in the docent assigned for another tour. Lexie is Caroline’s right-hand woman, working hard to keep communications with docents and volunteers open and running smoothly – and she’s been our contact for the past three months.

But perhaps you haven’t met her in person, which means you’ve missed that broad smile she has on her face, or the sweet personality expressed in a willingness, as eager in person as online, to help docents and volunteers  facilitate whatever is needed.

Lexie – and that’s the name her mother picked for her, but bowed to pressure and named her the more formal Alexandra, yet always calls her Lexie – is a lifelong Chicagoan. She grew up on the near southwest side of the city and has “a pretty positive view of the Chicago Public Schools,” which she attended through high school.

She resides in Garfield Ridge – look it up, its just west of Midway airport – and grew up in Bridgeport. Her mom works for the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Department for the State of Illinois and her dad is a facilities manager for a local software company. Her older brother, Anthony, completes the family. She admits her family, like she does, laughs a lot. It’s a “lively and loud” group, which bakes up a storm, primarily around Christmas time. That’s when her mother, who is of Polish extraction, bakes cookie sheets full of kolaczkis, Polish filled cream cheese cookies, which are a family favorite.

After high school, today’s 26-year-old attended the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and received a BS in Human Development and Family Studies – a degree offered, oddly enough, through the School of Agriculture.

An interest that had been inspired from her time at CPS was museums – “I remember going on museum field trips,” she says – which led to enrollment in the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Art and Art History for a degree in Museum and Exhibition Studies.

While on that road, a detour for a while, she took a lot of education classes. “My mom said, get a degree to work as a kindergarten or art teacher,” she said. But that wasn’t just where she wanted to be. Instead, having also worked at a children’s science learning center and combining that with her museum memories, she got back on the highway to a museum education degree. She is well into her studies, with one more year before receiving a master’s degree.

Still living at home, which is both a result of the pandemic and a necessity while she worked on her university studies, Lexie is poised to move in with her boyfriend Felix soon. The two met way back when both attended Whitney Young High School and travelled to school together on the long Orange line L ride. They are looking for a neighborhood that has a few more nightlife offerings, restaurants and bars to frequent, and musical locations to listen to “almost anything,” from alt rock and beyond.

In the upcoming year, while working at CAC part-time, she will be pursuing a Capstone Project, research similar to a master’s thesis but more hands-on and experiential. The focus will be on the efforts between museums and children’s programming—not children’s museums and their programming, but more traditional museums and how they handle programming and integration with kids. Toward that project, Lexie has been watching what CAC is doing in its education department.  And she’s been visiting other full-service museums to see what they are doing to involve children in their exhibitions.

It was Felix who got Lexie interested in architecture. “He was a CAC member way before me,” she admits. “I’ve learned from him.” The two have been on the boat cruise twice already this year. “We loved it and have told everyone who know” about it, she adds.

Less serious educationally, but very serious in her life, is Lexie and Felix rooting for the Chicago White Sox. “I’m a huge Sox fan,” she reports, noting that the couple attended last fall’s play-off games.  “I grew up down on 35^th Street and I have South Side pride,” she laughs

The couple likes to switch sitting near the first base line, the third base line, and even in the upper section “It’s a good view of the outfield at a night game,” she says.  Adding good play and games to the event is the good food at the ball park. “They added Rainbow Cones and Antique Taco (a 35^th St. venue) food,” she says. “You don’t have to wait in lines and there are gourmet fries.” Well, at least you didn’t used to stand in line. If the Sox continue to flourish, Lexie is worried about the crowds.

The duo also likes to go the Cubs/Sox games when they are held on the South Side, “It was Comiskey first, and as I grew up, U.S. Cellular Field,” she recalls. She doesn’t use the term Guaranteed Rate Field. “It’s Sox Park,” she says resolutely.

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