Reframing Diversity and Inclusion
Diversity and inclusion are now common words in organizational management. Before considering the actual practices, it might be useful to consider the meaning of each of the words. Diversity: : Diversity means variations. Genetic diversity, for example, in the human population creates a huge range of hair colors. Sadly, diversity has become a coded word. …
A Museum Professional’s Oath for Better Visitor Interactions
Museums serve visitors, both on-site and off. Connecting with others is a grave responsibility, a relationship that can change people and organizations. Funders love engagement, like education and community engagement. Museums seek funding for programs that connect them to others, often raising millions for operating support. This work is essential, basically making the museums’ …
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How do you do Community Engagement
Community Engagement is a commitment. Often organizations need to go through stages to improve their engagement with patrons. At the lowest level of engagement, organizations want to include people in their existing programs without changes. At the highest level of engagement, the organization is willing to make changes and as a result their community changes. …
(Online Course) Self-Care For Mission-Driven Professionals
Mission-driven professionals are not in it for the money. They place their desire to fulfill the mission over themselves. Doing mission-driven work can be gratifying. But, this work is also incredibly draining. The rewards can be minimal both emotionally and financially. With these challenges, the mission-driven professional finds themselves feeling empty and exhausted. Self-care is …
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What is Community Engagement?
Community Engagement is one of those terms that is tossed around in museums but can become encrusted with coded meaning. Often museums use the word community engagement to mean bringing in low-income people, with “community” being a coded term for underprivileged people. Sometimes community engagement might be used as the term for bringing in new …
Thinking about Value: Universal Rights of Humanity & Free Arts/ Culture
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed in 1948 explicitly calls out the importance of arts and culture. Article 27 states “Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.” This estimable document includes a number of essential …
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Fostering Empathy by Acknowledging Credit
Art Museum Teaching recently posted an article about empathy in the workplace. As always, Mike Murawski’s post was thoughtful and thorough. In reflecting on the article, I wanted to think further about the situations when empathy is lacking in the workplace. What is Empathy? Empathy is the ability to understand other’s feelings and act …
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Connecting Experience and Research
Research is the fuel in the engine of the museum’s output. Like a car, which is basically inert without a driver, the museum only fulfills its full mission when drawing visitors. Visitors are now a scarce commodity. Drawing more visitors requires considering our offerings and the way those offerings come to fruition. This does mean …
Interpretation : Focus on Tactile and Kinesthetics
In museum galleries, we signal ideas through a variety of ways. Collections are visible in the galleries. Interpretation adds more signals, like ancillary images, audiotours, and of course text. But, we also omit many stimuli. We often completely exclude two major forms of meaning-making, kinesthetic and tactile. What happens when we do this? And, what …
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What Museums Can Learn from the Black Panther
Taken from the Marvel Comic Books, the Black Panther is a movie about a fictional African nation that cloaks its advanced civilization as a form of self-preservation. The king of the nation has superhuman strength thanks to serious sumptuary success. The Black Panther’s trail to bring a bad guy to justice starts some even worse …
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