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Coming from her homeland of Turkey to the hills of Malibu, Ozge Gencay-Ustun arrived at the Getty Villa as hundreds of visitors made their way to the opening.

But unlike those expecting to leisurely stroll amid the sumptuous gardens and ancient art, she came to work.

Part of the first class of a graduate conservation program jointly sponsored by the Getty Trust and the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, Gencay-Ustun has been making frequent trips to the ocean-side museum – that is, of course, when she’s not walking to campus for class.

The new UCLA/Getty Program in archaeological and ethnographic conservation is one of a handful of graduate conservation programs in the world, and its dual emphasis on theory and practical experience makes it even more rare.

In tandem with the opening of Getty Villa, the students began their lab work this quarter at the newly furnished, state-of-the-art facility overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

The six students in the program can frequently be found in the labs of the Villa where they are working on the conservation of wooden and ceramic objects this quarter.

One student, Steven Pickman, is currently working with a Guatemalan mask, while Gencay-Ustun is in the process of dismantling a ceramic water jug that was repaired earlier but is now flaking apart.

“I’m testing to see what adhesive was used. That will tell me how to take it apart and which solvents to use. Without harming the objects, I’ll re-adhere the object by using another appropriate solvent,” she said.

Across town, in the basement of the Fowler Museum, UCLA faculty also teach the handful of students everything from cultural theory to the principles of conservation and its documentation.

“You can’t be admitted without a technical background, but we try to go beyond the technical background ... holistic here is the word,” said Charles Stanish, the director of the Cotsen Institute.

The idea for such a program began nine years ago when members of the UCLA faculty and conservators at the Villa saw the need for a thorough program in ethnographic conservation, said Julia Sanchez, assistant director at the Cotsen Institute.

Ethnographic materials can range from intricate necklaces to tribal masks to headdresses. Often, these objects have a cultural value in addition to their aesthetic worth, Stanish said.

Working to preserve and restore such objects can be especially challenging because of their composition.

“With something like an oil painting you only have one medium ... with ethnographic conservation, you can have leather straps, feathers and copper,” he said, describing a headdress.

Due to the cultural sensitivity and technical expertise needed to preserve such artifacts, the three-year joint masters program was established as a means of supporting aspiring conservators in their desire to preserve history.

“Archaeology is often called a destructive science. When you dig something up you destroy the equilibrium it was in. ... Conservation tries to get that object back into some state of equilibrium so that it can survive,” Pickman said.

That spirit of care and sensitivity is another hallmark of the program. Thus, when UCLA faculty members did field work with students last summer at a burial site in Chile, they didn’t just treat the bones as “some abstract decontextualized thing,” Stanish said

Instead, attempts to incorporate indigenous populations into the excavation and conservation work led to a local priest preforming sacred rituals over the bodies before further work ensued, Stanish said.

This past fall, the graduate students discussed such ethical and cultural issues when they took a course on the repatriation of American Indian remains and cultural objects.

“Sensitivity needs to be carried out. ... For me, conservation is constantly having a dialogue between people, the artifact and its environment,” Pickman said.

With easy access to UCLA faculty and Villa conservators, artifacts from the Fowler Museum and private collections, a 20,000 volume library at the Villa and new labs, the six students will have what they need to continue conserving and preserving.