Reflections on Museum Education in 2017

Added on Medium, December 21, 2017

2018 is quickly approaching, and I have been thinking about what has been accomplished in the museum field in 2017. I looked back on blog posts I have written about what I anticipated for 2017, and there has been new developments that I did not anticipate but I am proud of what I have accomplished and I look forward to what the next year has in store.

There are some examples I list here but are not limited to of what I have accomplished this year in my professional career so far are what I am especially proud of.

I started working with the Maritime Explorium, a children’s science museum on Long Island. Since I started there, I not only worked on museum programming and museum education programming I began work on administration tasks to assist in running the museum. An example of a program I work in is a pre-school program, Little Sparks, which allows children to play while learning STEM lessons.

I began working with an Education Committee at the Three Village Historical Society to assist in revamping school programs and docent manual. In addition to researching for the programs and manual, I observed an education program delivered at a high school to see what can be improved on.

I have written this blog for over a year now, and it continues to be a learning experience I enjoyed. So many of you have expressed your views and opinions on the topics I introduced. Many also have shared the posts I made to help continue the discussion, and I am very grateful to all of you who read and share them.

There is more I still need to accomplish in my professional career but I am proud of how far I came. I hope to keep moving forward in my career and help the field continue to grow.

The museum field has been moving forward as well. While we still have a long way to go, our work as museum professionals showed the community we are working towards being more relevant. Also, we have been more vocal on things that we need to work on as a field especially equity, diversity, and how to have better working conditions to encourage individuals to stay in the field. There has been so many things that have happened this year for museum professionals.

Museum professionals, especially in the past few months, have been discussing what the future would be like for museums. Not only have museum professionals discussed the future of museums on American Alliance of Museums Alliance Labs and Museum magazine but many other museum blogs and websites continue the discussion as well. I recently came across the Museum Id magazine website, an international magazine which shares progressive thinking and developments in museums globally.

According to their website, Museum Id is an influential magazine and global conference for museum professionals since 2009. It is dedicated to serving the international museum community and is designed for museum professionals interested in a more innovative and open approach to professional inquiry and development.

The Museum Id magazine features a collection of various articles about the future of museums called the #FutureMuseum Project (I included the link in the Resources section below).

Some of the titles that were shared in the #FutureMuseum Project include Increasing Diversity And Helping To Establish A Sense of Ownership; Not Just A Building, But Building Community; Collaboration And Well-Being; Agile, Accessible, And Distinct; Engaging Audiences More Deeply; Retaining Their Sense of Public Service; and Museums As Young Learner’s Classrooms.

Each of the articles focus on museums working towards making their institutions more accessible to its audiences as well as more engaging within the community. The articles were written by museum professionals who contributed to the project by writing the short articles and sending them to the magazine via email.

As a field, we continue to work together to improve our museums and our communities. We also need to be reminded to be thankful for the museum colleagues we work with, for our visitors who come to use our resources and participate in our programs, and the community partners that we collaborate with to work towards making our communities better places to be in. I am proud to be working in this field, and I hope we continue to make progress in the New Year.

I decided that this would be the last blog post for the year 2017 because I will be spending time with family for Christmas and running children’s activities to celebrate the New Year. I will be updating my website with more resources I came across to help other museum, non-profit, and education professionals. I look forward to what is in store for 2018.

What are your personal and/or professional resolutions for the New Year? Do you have anything your institution is doing that you are looking forward to?

To those who are celebrating, Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! Happy New Year!

Resource:
http://museum-id.com/the-futuremuseum-project-what-will-museums-be-like-in-the-future-essay-collection/

What Museums Hope For 2018

Added to Medium, December 14, 2017

As 2018 approaches, I have been thinking more about what I hope the museum field will accomplish in this upcoming new year. What I hope for 2018 as a museum professional is to have an improved work environment in the museum community and continue our work to have more inclusive accessible museum programming. We need to continue to remember we are a changing society and our practices need to reflect our communities wishes to remain relevant.

Museum professionals especially throughout social media such as Twitter have been thinking about what they hope for 2018. On Twitter, there is a hashtag being shared: #museumtrends2018. There has been a lot of discussion about what the future of museums can be, and I hope we can make the changes and adaptations needed to continue to collaborate within our communities and around the world.

American Alliance of Museums magazine, Museum, has recently discussed about the future of museums in their most recent edition, Museum 2040. I previously discussed this edition in a previous blog post “Creating an Environment-Friendly World with Museums” which focused on the museums encouraging our communities to work towards a more environmentally friendly world. While this edition of Museum magazine was written as if we are in the year 2040, the information presented in the magazine can inspire museum professionals to take actions that would help create an environment-friendly community. Our world continues to change, and museums as well as any institution also need to recognize this change and learn how to change with it.

We need to consider changes we need to make on a personal and professional level as well to help ourselves be in a healthy environment. Many museum professionals have gathered together to think about what we want to work towards in 2018. Seema Rao posted a survey last month on Twitter asking museum professionals what trends we are most likely working towards for 2018.

According to the survey results, the themes for 2018 trends in museum education are equity and inclusion, workplace issues, and visitor-centered experiences. Some of the trends in the equity and inclusion include fostering relevance, social justice, and museum ethics. Workplace issues in the survey results include money, jobs, and stress. The visitor-centered experiences shared in the results include digital experiences, skill development, and student and family programs.

When I read about the survey results, I was not surprised to see these main themes and trends for 2018. Each of these themes are especially important for the museum professional community who continue to find ways to make their institutions relevant to our continuously changing society. We are recognizing that our society is more politically correct than when museums first appeared in our nation, and we understand that we need to reflect this in our staff, board, and museum practices.

It is particularly hard for many museum professionals to stay in the field in its current work condition. Since we are discussing this more in recent months I hope for our field that we continue this discussion and work on making the changes we need to fulfill our personal and professional expectations for our museum work.

Our work in the museum also needs to adapt to our visitors and potential visitors needs for an engaging museum experience. As technology continues to make advances, museums try to adapt to these changes by creating digital programs that allow more opportunities to interact with museums’ collections and narrative.

The survey continued with more specific results that revealed we are most likely not going to see immediate results within the next five years.

Rao pointed out that museum education in 2018 would like to offer visitors a high-quality, inclusive experiences but feel real challenges in order to do so like funding and training. Also, survey respondents indicated that museum educators do not foresee that the problems in the field will improve in the next five years since there were real concerns about balancing technology and collections-based experiences and there were also real fears about challenges for the future in terms of funding and staffing.

Current conditions in our field such as the lack of proper funding and training do prevent us from providing high-quality and inclusive experiences. We continue to argue our case for museums needs to have appropriate funding during Museum Advocacy Days, and by continuing our discussion on these days in Washington D.C. each year we increase awareness as well as inspire measures to increase funding.

I do not believe that all of the challenges we face as museum educators will be resolved overnight. If we continue to plead our case and continue this discussion, we would be able to work towards having better experiences in addition to sufficient funding and staffing. Since we do not know how much we can accomplish at this moment, we also see what survey participants say could be trends in 2022.

Museum educators, according to Seema Rao, pointed out in the survey that there was a greater disparity in themes for the 2022 trends since predicting so far out is more challenging. For 2022, the museum education field would perhaps be facing possible obsolescence, increasing equity, developing engaging experiences, and changes in technology.

It is hard to predict what may happen a few years down the road but I can see our museum community continue to work towards making museums more relevant in a changing society. I look forward to finding out what we accomplish in the upcoming year and I hope that museums continue to work towards relevant programming as well as better working environment.

What do you hope for 2018? Do you have New Years resolutions for yourself professionally?

 

Resources:
https://medium.com/@steward.lindsey/creating-an-environment-friendly-world-with-museums-b2e0a7f77556
http://www.aam-us.org/resources/center-for-the-future-of-museums/museum-2040
https://brilliantideastudio.com/art-museums/museum-education-2018-trend-forecast/

Online Communities: Why They Are So Important for Museum Professionals

Originally added on Medium, December 7, 2017

One of the best ways for museum professionals to fulfill their professional growth is to learn from each other through online communities. I follow and participate in the Facebook group Emerging Museum Professionals and in #MuseumEdChat on Twitter. There are many Emerging Museum Professionals Facebook groups for local museum communities, and there is one that covers emerging museum professionals all over the nation, the National Emerging Museum Professionals group. While I do follow many local emerging museum professional groups in New England and New York, I mainly focus on the national group to be able to hear from other museum professionals to gain more perspective on the museum field on a national level. Since museums are utilizing social media to get visitors and potential visitors attention, it makes sense that museum professionals take advantage of social media to communicate with one another.

It is important that museum professionals have the opportunity to connect with one another since one of the best ways to continue adapting programs and exhibits is to learn from other museum professionals. Not many museum professionals have the opportunity to meet with others in person for various reasons especially not having enough time and money to invest in traveling to museum conferences and workshops.

When we have online discussions, we are able to connect with many museum professionals from around the country and in some cases around the world. Also, we are able to get inspirations for our own practices including but not limited to programs, exhibits, collections policies, and administrative practices.

According to their Facebook group, the National Emerging Museum Professionals network envisions communities in which museum professionals make meaningful connections within and across backgrounds, disciplines, and institutions by: providing leadership, responding to changing needs, enriching experiences, growing capabilities, sharing resources, advocating for the museum profession, connecting groups on a local and national level.

In the National Emerging Museum Professionals group, there are many topics discussed among participants in the group. Some examples include but not limited to resume help, volunteer recruitment, advice on how to write a collections management policy, how volunteers can be recognized/appreciated, and looking for inspiration for youth programming. Any of the members post questions or discussion points posed to other participants in the network, and many give their responses based on their experiences.

I find these discussions helpful because I find out what other museum professionals have done in similar projects I have worked on at the time. I participate in the discussions and I also save conversations on Facebook so I can refer to them later to get some inspiration for my work in the museum field.

As well as Facebook, I also participate in the #MuseumEdChat discussions on Twitter. Museum Ed Chat hosts discussions usually on Thursdays from 8pm to 9pm to chat about museum education in addition to general museum topics. Each account holder of the MuseumEdChat account takes turns hosting the chat, and the topics vary on each discussion. The discussions begin with questions posed by the host and those who are participating live can respond with their answers. If one could not participate in the discussion live, they are encouraged to still answer the questions on their Twitter page and use the hashtag to make sure their responses are noticed by other followers. This Twitter discussion is open to all museum professionals not just museum educators since we all work towards the mission to educate the public using the resources we have in our collections and programs.

I participated in tonight’s #MuseumEdChat discussion which was about reflecting on this past year and what we hope to accomplish next year. One of the questions included: What are you most proud of from work this year? My response to this question was “I am the most proud when I see a smile on a kid’s face, and thank me for all the help I give them. I especially love it when they give me little gifts to show how they really appreciate the time they spent in a program.”

Another example of the questions posed in tonight’s discussion was: What are some big themes you noticed in the field in 2018? I knew that there are many themes that are discussed in our field especially within the past few months but I decided to respond with “I noticed that one of the big themes this year is how we should strengthen our connections with schools and other departments in the museum field. I hope we continue discussing this theme as well as many other themes in 2018.” It is important that we establish and strengthen our connections to pursue our missions and help others within our communities.

Other big themes I noticed stood out to me since these have been recently talked about and are especially relevant for the upcoming year. According to Seema Rao, for instance, she stated “Burnout and learning to handle change seemed like big themes of the year; and frankly, some people figuring out if they should leave the field.” It is challenging to stay in the field in our current state in the economy, and it is easy to feel less motivated so finding ways to inspire us is especially important. I am glad that we continue to have this discussion, and it is an important topic to continue talking about in 2018.

I also believe that we need to work on being able to take the time to focus on ourselves and think about our practice as museum professionals. I was glad to see that another participant in the discussion pointed this out tonight. One participant pointed out that “Finding consistent time to reflect on my practice, students’ work, and the overarching state of the field. In some ways that is my job, but I’ve been busy with other things the past six months. Carving out think time: the biggest priority for the coming year.”

When I read that statement, I kept thinking about how there are so many things I need to think about in my own practice and what is going on in the field. A lot of times I have been busy with many things both personally and professionally that I think there is not enough time in the day to do so. I am glad that I have been writing in my blog for over a year now since I am able to take this time to write about what is going on and react to what is happening. There is so much out there that I do not always have the time to write about all of it so I try to read as much as I can. I think we all need to remind ourselves to take that time and learn how we can be better museum professionals.

We should take advantage of our online connections, and see what we can learn from the experiences as we continue to move the museum field forward.

What social media discussions have you find the most helpful in your work? Are there other social media outlets you follow that offer similar help in your work?

 

 

 

How Can I Grow in the Museum Education Field

Originally on Medium, November 30, 2017

Museum education has been a passion of mine for a long time, and I continue to find opportunities to develop my career. One of the most important lessons I have learned in my career is to connect with other museum professionals since we learn best about the field when we talk with others who understand the field. After Thanksgiving weekend, I attended a professional development program on museum education career. The program I attended was New York City Museum Education Roundtable’s (NYCMER) Career Growth in Museum Education located at the Brooklyn Historical Society. I was inspired by the NYCMER Career Growth in Museum Education program to think more about my museum education career and how I could move forward in my career.

I reflected on how my museum education career has been going since coming to Long Island, and while it was not easy I learned so much so far from this experience. After I began the next phase of my career on Long Island, I learned that I needed to know more about the administration side of the museum realm in addition to doing well as a museum educator. Since then, I was able to learn more through experience on the job and professional development. It is especially not easy to move forward in the field when there is so much that needs to be improved on to help me and my colleagues stay in the field; I seize opportunities when I can and find ways to utilize my skills to be a better museum professional. We need to find a middle ground in our field that will help us fulfill our personal needs in addition to our professional needs. These were the thoughts I reflected on as I participated in the NYCMER program.

While we were in Brooklyn for the program, participants listened to presentations on what is inspiring museum workers to leave the field and had the opportunity to contribute in small group discussions.

Claudia Ocello, who co-authored the blog post I referenced in one of my previous blog posts called “Leaving the Museum Field”, discussed some of the results Ocello, Sarah Erdman, Dawn Salerno, and Marieke Van Damme found in the survey. Ocello began her presentation with the question: Why are great museum workers leaving the field?

She shared information that was included in the blog post including results from the survey that addressed the question: what could museums do to get you to stay? According to the results, 51 percent of those who participated in the survey said better pay would encourage them to stay while more support (i.e. more staff, budget, and projects) and advancement opportunities tied at 23 percent. Other responses survey participants stated to answer the question included having paid internship opportunities (one percent) and benefits (13 percent). These are very important responses because there are not many opportunities for museum professionals to be able to support themselves during this poor period in our economy.

During the presentation, Ocello pointed out that our field is not alone in wanting to change our current financial situation. She revealed that she found in a national survey on the ladder website that 71 percent of people in our country are actively looking for another job. While we are not able to have immediate results, there are things we need to do and work on now.

Ocello stated that we need to as individuals and what museums as institutions need to do to maintain a healthy work environment. As individuals, we need to take care of ourselves, be realistic, and give ourselves credit for the work we do. This is really good advice since we do have a hard time remembering that. I especially sometimes forget about this advice. I get involved in so much that a lot of times I wonder how exactly I am going through my day and getting things done.

Our institutions should also encourage its museum professionals to take advantage of professional development opportunities and mentorships for all levels in the field. We can learn so much from these opportunities not just for the museum professionals’ benefit but can also help museums get inspired to revitalize programs, exhibits, and well-being of the collections. It is also important for museums to look critically at benefits, pay, and work/life balance as well as committing to diverse hiring. Museums need to find a way to keep their professionals in a healthy work environment that will assist them in their well-being since if we keep overworking with less support from our institutions it will be harder to encourage us to stay working in the museum field. Also, museums should reflect on the fact we live in diverse communities and our institutions should be able to represent our communities by bringing in more diverse museum professionals onto our staff and board.

After the presentation, we participated in a small exercise to see what position title is based on the bullet points in the job descriptions. We were also given the opportunity to meet with one or more of the group facilitators to talk more about career growth and sought advice. I had the opportunity to participate in a group discussion facilitated by Daniel Zeiger who is the Assistant Director for Children and Family Learning at the American Museum of Natural History. While we asked questions and shared our experiences Zeiger told us about how he ended up in his position, and gave us some advice on career growth.

Some of the advice we heard include being able to understand museum operations such as finances and strategic planning. Another bit of advice is to seize for opportunities. Since taking on more responsibilities at the Maritime Explorium including financial operations, I thought it was great advice because by working on museum operations in addition to on education I became more aware of how my work as an educator contributes to the larger operation of the museum. Also, by being able to have a number of additional skills more opportunities will open for us to show ourselves and our museums what we are capable of. We should be able to learn from each other and help each other move our field, as well as our personal wellbeing, forward.

What do you do to help your career grow? What professional development programs do you participate in? How do you feel about your own career growth?

Resources:
http://labs.aam-us.org/blog/leaving-the-museum-field/
https://www.theladders.com/p/25789/majority-unhappy-at-work

Creating an Environment-Friendly World with Museums

Added to Medium, November 16, 2017

Our society is continuing to becoming more aware of what we can do to preserve our environment, and museums are great resources for this preservation. I have come across many articles, blog posts, and other resources discussing the environment and sustainability. We can use these resources as we move forward in our preservation and sustainability efforts. There are many examples that I will mention in this blog post but they are not limited to these resources.

Most recently, for example, the American Alliance of Museums released the most recent edition of Museums magazine that flash forwards to the year 2040 to show a version of what the future we can envision for museums and our world. I also came across an article online about the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh designed a storm water filtration system that got sustainability advocates’ attention. Another article I came across was from the Coalition of Museums for Climate Justice written by Catherine Dumouchel and Douglas Worts which introduces and discusses in detail about Canadian Working Group on Museums and Sustainable Communities (WGMSC) – a group that operated between 2000 and 2007. There were also a workshop and a webinar I participated in, both hosted by Sarah Sutton (Sustainable Museums) about Environmental Sustainability in Museums through New England Museum Association (NEMA).

This is not a new subject but it is worth discussing because every living thing has one planet to live on, and we need to do what we can to preserve our world. The number of resources we see are a testament to our museum field’s acknowledgement to how significant our world’s preservation is. I appreciate seeing so many museum professionals talking about this topic.

By reading about what other museum professionals have to say about this topic, we can learn so much and make our institutions more environmentally friendly as a result.

The latest edition of AAM’s Museums, Museums 2040, for instance includes articles about the environment and sustainability. Overall this special edition of this magazine shows readers what 2040 could look like based on information we have and what we are doing right now to protect our future. According to Elizabeth Merritt, of the Center for the Future of Museums, she challenged authors of the articles to describe what museums could have done between 2017 and this idea of 2040 to achieve the success museums have in this version of 2040. The articles, including “The Next Sustainability Frontier” and “Maintaining Green while Sustaining Collections”, take on this challenge to give us a fascinating version of 2040.

In “The Next Sustainability Frontier”, it discusses museums’ progress towards sustainability in 2040. The article revealed what has been done in the past and what is being done in this present to create sustainable solutions for our museums and environments. This author stated in the article,

“Most major cities have reached or are approaching carbon neutral status, having benefitted from museums’ significant contributions to urban planning. Our research into historical and cultural alternatives, our commitment to public outreach for engagement and compliance, and our infrastructure adaptations and innovations have established museums as leaders in the drive toward sustainability. We have accomplished this by integrating our buildings and open spaces, knowledge, programming, and creativity into climate response teams in major urban areas, helping to improve the lives of millions.” (12)

The previous example shares the idea of what the writing style was like to take on that challenge Merritt proposed for this special edition magazine. An example of how integration of buildings and open spaces discussed in the article was Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay which opened in 2012 and used 250 acres to help transform Singapore from a “garden city” to a “city in a garden”. The author stated that the Gardens by the Bay serves as a stunning example of applying climate positive solutions to the urban issues of both energy and habitat.

This example reminds me of the garden at Butler-McCook House & Garden in Hartford where I previously worked. Since the McCook family returned from their visits to Europe, they designed a garden inspired by the European gardens they witnessed. Today, it serves as a little oasis for Hartford residents and workers who sit in the garden to admire the beauty of the plants, both foreign and local. If we work towards this version of 2040, gardens like the one at Butler-McCook House can serve as part of the positive solutions to urban issues.

The second article, “Maintaining Green while Sustaining Collections”, is a case study about California Science Museum in Santa Rosa figuring out how to cultivate living walls while protecting the museum’s diverse collection of objects. According to the article, the California Science Museum was able to be green and sustain the collections in three steps:

“First, staff reviewed humidity readings to determine the most affected zones. They replaced sensitive objects in those areas with reproductions, allowing the museum to preserve the original objects and display them in other ways. Second, they shortened the object rotation cycle for galleries outside the most affected zones.
Third, they created a visible “open” storage area with stringent temperature and humidity control, where they could display objects at minimal cost and staff time, without interpretive context.” (15)

When we work to balance being green and sustaining the museums’ collections, we can improve our practices to preserve our collections while making our environment a better place to live.

I love how this special edition pushes us forward in time, and how we interpret how our future could look as a global society and as a museum field. I thought about the questions Merritt posed in the letter she wrote at the end of the edition: “Do I think this could happen?” “Do I want this to happen?” and “Does this have to wait until 2040, or can I make it happen now?” And I believe we should not wait. Museums have so much potential to help our communities improve our environments, and we already are working towards a better future.

In addition to this special edition of Museums magazine, I also came across this post about storm water flow at the North Carolina Museum of Art. According to the article, they stated that the parking lots at the museum in West Raleigh, help storm water flow into a designed system of grass and soil that slows the water and filters pollutants before the water flows into a stream on the property and eventually into the Neuse River. Water is an important resource we have on this planet, and it can be taken for granted. By doing something similar at other museums, we can help maintain our water supply and create a better environment.

Other examples that discuss museums’ dedication to creating a better environment include ones I found on the Coalition of Museums for Climate Justice’s website. The first example is called “Museums & Sustainable Communities – Six Things Our Working Group Learned”; it introduces the organization, Canadian Working Group on Museums and Sustainable Communities. It went into the backstory of the organization that addressed the question: How could museums help to create a coherent culture of sustainability (including environmental learning as well as social and economic equity), which touched Canadians of all ages, ethnicities, geographic settings and socioeconomic backgrounds? The purposes of this organization include:

To provide opportunities for capacity-building in the museum community, regarding the role of museums in the development of sustainable communities;
To develop resources and tools for use by museums for planning, implementing and evaluating initiatives related to the development of sustainable communities; and
To develop and maintain networks within and outside the museum community that encourage museums to take action in contributing to the development of sustainable communities.

This article continues to provide additional information that can inspire museums to work towards a better environment in our world.

The second example I found on the website called “A Shade of Green: Ten Practical Steps for Museums” written by Joshua Lichty, who the article stated is an experienced Project & Event Coordinator with a demonstrated history of working in the museums and cultural industry and is involved with the Ontario Museum Association. It offers advice museums can follow to make their museums greener including light your museum with LED lighting solutions; remove all plastic bags from your gift shop; recycle and compost at your museum; purchase only recycled and sustainable paper products; and run an annual eco-inspired program (exhibit, lectures, school program, etc.). By being able to learn practical advice, it will help museums not only be environment friendly but also use its status as an educational resource to educate visitors on making their homes environmentally friendly.

Good news is museum professionals are still talking about creating a cleaner, greener environment and we need to continue this discussion not only within our field but with our visitors and community members.

Announcement: Since next week is Thanksgiving, I will not be posting on the blog to focus on celebrating the holiday with family and loved ones.

To those who are celebrating, Happy Thanksgiving!

Resources:
http://www.aam-us.org/resources/center-for-the-future-of-museums/museum-2040
http://www.wral.com/museum-s-stormwater-system-gets-high-marks-from-sustainability-advocates/16931706/?platform=hootsuite
https://coalitionofmuseumsforclimatejustice.wordpress.com/2017/10/30/museums-sustainable-communities-six-things-our-working-group-learned/
https://coalitionofmuseumsforclimatejustice.wordpress.com/2017/10/25/a-shade-of-green-ten-practical-steps-for-museums/
https://nemanet.org/conference-events/

How to Work with Museum Boards: A Relationship Between the Staff and the Board

Added to Medium, November 9, 2017

As I assist with preparations for my museum’s board meeting this week, I thought more on what I have learned about the board’s role in the museum. Throughout my career so far, I became more involved in getting to know the board and what their impact is on the museum. I continue to learn more as I become more involved in projects that help the board see the museum’s progress. To absorb more knowledge about museum boards, in addition to personal experience, I read books, articles, and blog posts on various information about museum boards.

There are a number of responsibilities boards have for museums and other non-profit organizations. According to Hugh H. Genoways and Lynne M. Ireland’s Museum Administration 2.0, board members have a number of responsibilities including but not limited to: ensure the continuity of the museum’s mission, mandate, and purposes; act as an advocate in the community for public involvement in the museum; review and approve policies consistent with the museum’s mission and mandate, and to monitor staff implementation of these policies; plan for the future of the museum, including review and approval of a strategic plan that identifies the museum’s goals and ways to attain them, and monitoring implementation of the plan; and ensure that the museum has adequate staff to fulfill the mission.

Museum board responsibilities are not limited to only the previously listed. Their responsibilities do have to be clear to make sure the board members understand how their tasks have an impact on the overall museum’s function. Board members do need to not only understand the museum director and staff roles to see the museum’s impact on the community.

To effectively run a museum there has to be a clear definition of roles and responsibilities of board members, the executive director, and staff. Each of them need to work together to fulfill the museum’s mission and meet the needs of its constituencies. The executive director and board balance their leadership roles between both of them, and the extent to which the board and director achieve this balance will vary from museum to museum and will depend on the size of the museum. Each staff member, director, and board member have a role to fulfill to keep the museum running.

By learning more about my role in the museum and other roles in the museum, I can see how all of our work keeps the museum running for the community.

I began to learn more about museum boards and my role in collaborating with boards during my most recent years in my museum career. For instance, this week I have been asked to look over financial records of Maritime Explorium’s admission records for 2017. I carefully looked through each information between January and October to make sure it was all accurate to prepare for an upcoming board meeting. By completing this task, I will be able to help the executive director and the board understand the trends of this past year so far and they would be able to move forward in planning for next year.

While I was learning from my personal experience and from the book Museum Administration 2.0 about the board’s role in the museum, I also read the blog posts about museum boards.

In the Leadership Matters blog post “It’s the board, stupid”, Joan Baldwin pointed out that not everyone on boards internalizes the museum’s mission, gets along with the executive director, contributes time and money and gets others to do the same, but if board members have understood their trusteeship as work, based in a museum’s mission, there would probably be less disruption, less mediocrity, and more organizational success.

No one is perfect, and it can be a challenge to keep things functioning in the museum. The most important thing to keep in mind is to have constant and clear communication between the board, director, and museum staff.

Communication also needs to be clear between the board, executive director, and staff. The more effective and accurate the communication among them are the more likely what changes unfold can be accommodated smoothly.

Board members bring a variety of values with them, and the director’s success in the museum is directly related to his or her understanding of the board and its values. The board’s composition needs to be reflective of the community it serves. Museums’ boards, in other words, need to reflect diversity in their leadership. In Rebecca Herz’s blog post “Museum Boards” from a few years ago, one of the former museum directors she talked with pointed out that “we need boards that can represent the range of communities served by our museums”. This is certainly true now as it was when this blog post was written. If we do not effectively represent our communities, then people within those communities will not see how museums can be valued. To be able to represent our communities, we need to start with a diverse museum board.

The best way to have a better understanding of how museum boards function is to take advantage of the opportunities to assist in projects that affect museum boards’ roles and to get to know your museum board members.

Have you been on a museum board? What is your experience like? If you work in a museum, how directly have you worked with board members? What have your experiences with boards been like?

Resources:
Genoways, Hugh H., Lynne M. Ireland, Cinnamon Catlin-Legutko, Museum Administration 2.0, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017.
https://museumquestions.com/2013/11/18/museum-boards/
https://leadershipmatters1213.wordpress.com/2017/10/30/its-the-board-stupid/

What Do You See? The Importance of the Visitors’ Perspectives

Added to Medium, November 2, 2017

Museums continue to work to make educational programs, events, and exhibits more visitor-centered. One of the first things museum professionals should consider is to understand the visitors perspective. It is sometimes easy to forget what it is like to see the museum one works for with a fresh perspective. When we learn from the visitors, we are able to appeal to visitors and potential visitors.

I previously wrote about visitors in past blog posts, and by developing this topic now we see that it is still relevant in the museum field. To best understand our visitors, we should observe as well as talk with our visitors.

When we are able to observe visitors during their experiences, museum educators especially can learn how to make programming more engaging, fun, and educational for participants.

In the Museum Notes blog, visitor observation and perspective discussion was developed in the post “Observation: Seeing, Un-seeing, Re-seeing”. According to the blog post, it stated “Without thoughtful observation, what can we know and understand about what is happening around us in our museums, in the experiences we create, and the connections we hope to foster?” They brought up a good point since we need to learn what our visitors want or need from their experiences, and if we do not observe how visitors react to our programming our field cannot move forward and would not be relevant within our community.

To find out how we can observe visitors effectively, museum educators should find the best methods that would be the most appropriate and effective for their institution. Museum Notes stated that “we engage in both formal and informal observation in research and evaluation, during prototyping, and sharing visitor comments.” When we find out how we observe visitors, we follow through with the method, and hopefully gather results that will make our services better for visitors and potential visitors.

We also need to keep in mind when we observe we do not exclude our own actions within the museum. Museum Notes points out that,

“As good observers, we must also be observers of ourselves, studying our attention, checking our assumptions, and registering our focus. Questioning ourselves as we observe reminds us that we arrive at subjective interpretations, partial findings, and, hopefully, new questions.”

When we observe ourselves, we learn what we are currently doing to provide what the visitors want or need from our museums programming, events, and exhibits.

As we learn more about our visitors and ourselves, we should keep in mind what visitors’ rights are while they are participating in museums activities and interacting with the exhibits. In this month’s Brilliant Idea Studio blog, Seema Rao wrote about visitors in the short blog “Bill of Rights for Museum Visitors” which lists a number of certain rights museum visitors have while they are inside the museum. Some of the rights she listed are

“They have the right to just listen, to ask, to share, to question.
Again, they have the right to question.
They have the right to ask and question when their story isn’t included.
They have the right to notice when museums are doing it wrong.”

Visitors have various levels of interest in the material museums present depending on their reasons for visiting the museums in the first place. Sometimes they want to spend hours in the exhibits, and sometimes they want to walk through the exhibits to briefly see the exhibits. There are other times that visitors want to only attend programs such as a seminar, a family program, and an exhibit opening then leave.

Also, visitors should know how they can feel connected to the stories museums present as well as why they are significant within the community. If they feel they cannot relate to the museum and what it has to offer, then there would be no point from their perspective to go in.

Most importantly visitors need to feel that they can trust museums to allow them to express their desires for attending museum programs/exhibits/events, and for museums to trusts its visitors. They have many reasons for why they visit a museum, and if they feel the museum can provide a safe place or simply a place for them to relax visitors are more likely to continue their patronage to the museum. Visitors should also be able to provide feedback not only because it will help the museum continue to be relevant to its patrons but visitors also have a way to express what they enjoyed and what can be improved upon for future visits.

How does your museum or institution learn about its visitors? What feedback have you received from visitors that surprised (or not surprised) you the most?

Resources:
https://museumnotes.blogspot.com/2017/10/observation-from-seeing-to-un-seeing-to.html
https://brilliantideastudio.com/art-museums/bill-of-rights-for-museum-visitors/

What Can We Learn from International Museums? Encouraging A Global Relationship Between Museums

Added to Medium, October 26, 2017

When I began my career as a museum educator, I learned about various local, regional, and national organizations that provide professional development and other resources for museums. As I continue my career in the museum field, I also learned more about international museum organizations that offer similar resources for museum professionals around the world. I understood that museums can benefit from meeting with other museum professionals to share ideas and learn from each other about various museum operations especially education programming. Museums and museum professionals have opportunities to gather and learn from one another to keep developments in the field moving forward.

During tonight’s #MuseumEdChat on Twitter, myself and other participants emphasized the importance of learning from other professionals in the field. One of the participants, on answering a question about mentorship, pointed out that “people with varying areas of expertise need to mentor you through different issues”. There are so many professionals with various areas of expertise we work with that it is important to collaborate and seek guidance.

Another participant also thought about “colleagues in museums in other countries who literally risk their lives to preserve culture.” Museum professionals in many countries are dedicated to preserving culture, and work together to provide resources to help one another.

If we continue to engage with museum professionals both within our country and outside of the country, we will not only have a better understanding of one another we will also be leading by example on dealing with current issues in the world.

I was first introduced to international organizations when I learned about MuseumNext.

Museum Next is an organization that began in 2009 with the question “what’s next for museums?” They discovered that the answer to this question is as varied as the people who are building it. This organization builds a global community of museum leaders, innovators and makers who champion future thinking in museums. MuseumNext has led to collaborations that span the globe, and the influence of this passionate community can be seen in action in museums all over the world. It offers conferences held throughout the year in Europe, North America and Australia to offer participants the opportunity to hear inspiring presentations, pick up career skills in expert hosted workshops and network with fellow delegates.

When I began writing my blog, I began to learn more about international museum organizations through LinkedIn and other social media outlets such as Museums Association and the International Council of Museums (ICOM).

Museums Association is a UK based organization that inspires museums to change lives. It is the oldest museums association in the world (set up in 1889) based in London, and is independently funded by memberships. Their memberships are made up of museum professionals, institutions and corporate members. Museums Association values a lot in making museums have impacts on lives. This organization values having the courage to say what they believe; passion about delivering diversity and equality; working collaboratively, inclusively, and ethically; and lead change by example. The Association advocates for museums, sets ethical standards and runs training and professional development for members wishing to further their careers.

Museums Association is governed by a board of trustees from all parts of the UK museum community, elected by MA members. It runs various professional development programs, including conferences, and mentoring and regular training events.

The International Council of Museums (ICOM) is an organization created in 1946 by and for museum professionals with more than 37,000 members and museum professionals who represent the global museum community. A diplomatic forum made up of experts from 141 countries and territories was formed to respond to the challenges museums face worldwide. ICOM carries out international missions thanks to international mandates in association with partners including UNESCO, INTERPOL and the World Customs Organization (WCO). Also, ICOM is committed to providing cultural institutions with the necessary support and risk prevention tools when faced with conflict situations or natural disasters.

ICOM also organized International Museum Day, a worldwide event held around May 18th which aims to increase public awareness of the role of museums in developing society since 1977. Participation in International Museum Day promotes greater diversity and intercultural dialogue among the international museum community, and each year ICOM identifies a theme for the event. I have spread awareness of this worldwide event for years since I discovered it early on in my career. This past year’s theme was “Museums and contested histories: Saying the unspeakable in museums” which focuses on the role of museums that, by working to benefit society, become hubs for promoting peaceful relationships between people.

In addition to previously mentioned, ICOM also operates thirty international committees on a range of museum specialties, who conduct advanced research in their respective fields for the benefit of the museum community. Some of the committees include CECA – Education & Cultural Action, DEMHIST – Historic House Museums, ICOM-CC – Conservation, and ICFA – Fine Arts.

There are so many international museum organizations out there that emphasize the importance of museums and what they offer.

On the social media outlets, I have had discussions with museum professionals from various countries including but not limited to Uganda and Nigeria; there have been sharing points of view as well as sharing advice during these conversations. By connecting with museum professionals outside the country, I learn more about the museum field on a larger scale and appreciate so much diversity our world has to offer; we could (and should) celebrate what all of us in the world have to offer.

Do you know of other international museum organizations? What has your experience like connecting/networking with international museum professionals?

Resources:
http://www.museumsassociation.org/home
https://www.museumnext.com/
http://icom.museum/

Anniversary Special: One Year of Writing about Museum Education

Added to Medium, October 19, 2017

As a way to celebrate both the one-year anniversary and my birthday tomorrow, I decided to reflect on the past year and share plans moving forward for the blog. It has been exactly a year today since I started my first blog entry on Medium, and so much has happened since then. When I began my blog, I talked about how I became the museum educator I am and what led me to start writing it. I stated in my blog,

This story will continue not only with a discussion about my experiences in greater detail but I also will discuss recent topics in the field as well as recent books and journal articles I read. I also will write about conferences and workshops I attended. What I hope to accomplish with this blog is to give educators and aspiring educators both a personal account of and resources on the museum education field.

Now a year later, I kept my promise and discussed recent topics in the field including museum professionals leaving the field and what to do to make the field more appealing to stay in. Also, I discussed what I have been reading and discussed topics based on what I read in books, journals, blog posts, and articles. I briefly discussed my professional development experience in the blog.

Since I started the blog a year ago, I have met with many people who have expressed their thoughts, opinions, and insights on the ideas I shared. I shared my blog posts each week on social media outlets LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to reach out to people especially other museum professionals. Especially on LinkedIn, I read many comments, opinions, and insights to the topics I discussed. I am thankful for everyone who has read and responded to this blog since you all gave me insights on your perspectives on the museum field and continued the discussion on these topics. Also, I thank those who reached out to ask me questions and for my advice. When you respond to these blog posts, I am able to not only know what you thought about the current topic we are also able to learn from one another to keep moving our field forward. Because of this blog, I have also became even more involved in the field than before I started writing.

Ever since I began writing this blog there have been many developments including meeting new people, joining Gender Equity in Museums Movement (GEMM), and creating a new website to promote the blog in addition to sharing resources I come across.

After writing about gender equity in the Lunch with NEMA program, I was asked if I would be interested in joining Gender Equity in Museums Movement (GEMM) which is dedicated to educating museum professionals about gender equity and assisting museum professionals in discussing gender equity among colleagues. In addition to this, I created a website that is used as my professional reference and where I promote my blog.

When I created my website, https://lookingbackmovingforwardinmuseumeducation.com, I hoped to promote not only my blog but to also promote my expertise by sharing resources I refer to and open communication with viewers to discuss topics on museums. I designed my website so visitors can see an abbreviated version of my resume, and if they are interested in learning specific experiences there is a contact page where they can ask me to send them a copy of my resume. Also, my website has various resources organized into various topics including education and interpretation, educational resources, books on museums and public history, and blogs I read. These are resources I share that show I keep up to date on current topics and trends in the field. While I update my website, I also check on the number of individuals who have accessed my website.

I have seen people who have visited my website come from not only within the United States but from many countries around the world. There were individuals from Iceland, Israel, Ghana, South Africa, Australia, Canada, Japan, India, Spain, Germany, Ireland, China, Bangladesh, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Brazil, Peru, Russia, Switzerland, and Italy. When I saw the amount of people from different countries visiting my website, I saw the potential in continuing to make my website grow and reach out to more people.

I have learned a lot in this experience and I am thankful for each moment that led me to this point in my career.

Moving forward, I have additional ideas and projects I am continuing to work on. Since I realize there is international attention to this website as well, I will look out for resources that discuss international museum topics to add to my website.

While I have posted for the most part only once a week, I know that there is so much I want to write about so I want to write more than once on a regular basis. In order to do so, I want to make sure this blog and website can be financially supported to keep it running. I will launch my Patreon page to help support my website and blog.

Patreon, for those not familiar with the website, is a membership platform that provides business tools for creators to run a subscription content service, as well as ways for artists to build relationships and provide exclusive experiences to their subscribers, or patrons. It is popular among YouTube video makers, artists, writers, podcasters, musicians, and other creators who post regularly online.

On my Patreon page I encourage all to make a contribution to help support the blog and website, and/or share my page with others. There are a number of rewards you can earn when you contribute which are: acknowledgement on my website, send information you come across to me on museums and history, and make requests for what I should write about for the blog. When you make higher contributions, in addition to the previously mentioned rewards we can arrange for an hour meeting, a two-hour meeting, or an unlimited meeting for either a meet and greet or seek consulting advice.

My goals are when I reach 50 patrons contributing I will post two blog entries per week instead of once per week. As more patrons contribute to my blog and website, I will increase the number of blog entries per week.

I encourage visiting and sharing my Patreon page, listed here: https://www.patreon.com/lindseysteward

Thank you all for your continued support during the past year, and I hope you all continue to read as I continue to give educators and aspiring educators both a personal account of and resources on the museum education field.

Planning Education Programs: The Significance of School Program Registrations

Added to Medium, October 12, 2017

One of the important parts of planning education programming in museums is the school group registrations. Early in my career, I had limited knowledge of the registration process since I was still learning more about the education part of my role. I always understood the significance of managing registrations for school programming, and continue to learn more about the registration process as I move forward in my career. We determine how many materials are needed for school programs, how many staff or volunteers are needed for each program, and when the space is needed for school programs by using the number of registrations we have in the school year. Before the discussion of registration is addressed, there are also many steps education departments in museums take when booking programs for the year.

To effectively have a smoothly run educational department, an organized system has to be in place for every step in the process from conception of programs to the delivery of the programs. I especially learned more about the significance of each step while I was the Long Island Museum, and learned their process. Each museum have similar and different processes depending on the size of the museum and funding, however I am more familiar with the processes of the museums I have worked and currently work in so I am able to explain the process based on my experiences.

When museums plan for educational programs (public school, private school, homeschool, camps, etc.), education departments use educational standards teachers use for their own classrooms as well as materials available from their museums. Once the programs are planned, a marketing plan is organized and executed to be sure local schools and other schools within the region are familiar with programs museums can offer.

Collaborations between the education department and communications department is vital in delivering the museum’s options in educational programming. The layout of the programs not only has to be visually appealing but communicate accurate information about the programs. Once the final decisions are made, the brochures are distributed and other promotions are shared on the museum’s website and social media outlets.

As the calls start coming in for registrations, an organized system is very significant to keep track of school groups. Documents are filled out with information on what schools are interested in visiting, the name of the teacher signing up for the program(s) as well as contact information such as phone number and email, the approximate number of students participating, and the program(s) he or she is signing up for. Teachers and other leaders are most likely to register months in advance whenever they have the time to register so museum education departments need to keep this in mind when completing the registration process and sending out reminders.

Also, an arrangement for payments is made ahead of time so the education department knows how the school is paying for the deposit and/or program fees. Education departments a lot of times know beforehand which payment method schools prefer especially if the schools have signed up for programs in the past.

Once the information is written down and saved in a Word document, the information is indicated on the calendar so the entire museum staff knows what is expected. Education staff also make sure that reminders and special instructions (directions and expectations for the programs) are sent to the teacher, or whoever is the main contact for the registration process. When the day arrives, museum education staff arrange to run the check-in process as smoothly as possible to have the students participate in the allotted time for the program(s). It is also important to be as flexible as possible since things do happen that may prevent school groups from arriving on time so having an efficient check-in process is especially helpful in these cases. I have personally went through this process a number of times as a museum educator.

The process I am most familiar with is using the G Suite, also known as the Google Apps, and keeping track of the information on Microsoft Office documents. G Suite has a couple of items such as Gmail and Calendar for communication; Drive for storage; and Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, and Sites for collaboration. When I was at the Long Island Museum, I used the Google Calendar to not only make note of what dates schools are interested in coming but also learn about what is going on in other departments at the museum since it is shared by the whole museum staff. Once I received the required information, I made a notation on the Google Calendar to show the school, number of students and the grade level, and the program they are interested in. Also, I make sure all of the information is filled out in the form created on Microsoft Word including contact information of the main teacher who signed up for the program or programs.

Meanwhile at the Maritime Explorium, I continue to learn about how the G Suite is used among the rest of the staff. The G Suite is used for more that registrations for school programs and other programs such as birthday parties and workshops. It is used to send emails and keep track of instructions for programs such as set up and the constructivist lesson plan.

While learning and recalling the registration processes used, I did a little research on my own about other software available to assist in organizing reservations.

There is a company, Double Knot, which creates software that provides online solutions for various administrative tasks especially online management of events, programs, memberships, ticketing and admissions, facility reservations and online fundraising. Their focus is to make sure museums and other non-profit organizations spend more time on delivering their missions.

Double Knot has a field trips and mobile classroom reservations online booking software designed to create an availability calendar that reflects even the most complex schedules in addition to support for blackout periods and flexible scheduling by day, week or month. It also displays a searchable reservations calendar that lets individuals begin the booking process with a single click. The software provides a way for museums to accept both online and offline payments for programs. Also, this software provides a simpler school group check in process by scanning a single group ticket.

When teachers book with museums that use this software, each reservation can trigger an email to the education department staff so they can call to touch base, learn more about the group, and answer any questions. Then those who complete the reservation would receive an automatic confirmation with all of the information needed especially museum staff contact information and any special instructions for them to follow prior to the trip.

By figuring out the best way for one’s museum to run the registration process, the education departments will be able to effectively fulfil the educational component of their museums’ missions.

What software or process do you find works best for your museum or organization? Has there been significant changes in how the registration process is done when and if your organization switched?
Resources:
https://gsuite.google.com/
http://www.doubleknot.com