Museum Field – Looking Back, Moving Forward in Museum Education!

2023 Update Plus My Experience at the 2023 MANY Conference in Syracuse

December 21, 2023

A lot has happened this year. While I have not been posting as much since being promoted to the role of Education Coordinator at Three Village Historical Society, I have regularly posted about my experiences as Education Coordinator and other adventures on the blog’s Instagram page. I shared pictures from the MANY Conference I attended, Sweetbriar Nature Center’s Butterfly and Bird Festival where I got a picture with an owl, Education and Crafts Table during Three Village Farmer’s Market season, visits to local museums and exhibits, a weekend trip to New York City, this year’s Spirits Tour and mini-exhibit during October, pictures of me dressed as Barbie for Halloween, and the Candlelight House Tour I attended with the rest of the TVHS staff. Check out the Instagram at @lbmfmuseumeducation to see what I was up to this year if you have not done so already.

Since I was getting used to my new role at TVHS, I was not posting as much as I would have usually in the past. I will work on posting more blog posts for 2024. Thank you all who have been reading previous posts and most recent ones this year! I hope all of you have a happy Winter Solstice, Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday, and a Happy New Year!

Below are my experience and my impressions of this past year’s Museum Association of New York conference:

Since this was the first MANY conference I attended, I did not entirely know what I was going to expect but I am happy that I was able to attend this past year’s conference in Syracuse. It was also my first time in Syracuse as well, so I was happy that there was an opportunity to explore part of the city while I was at the conference. The speakers during the Opening Session were very informative. I especially appreciated that MANY chose the speakers who spoke about not only what is relevant to the conference’s theme but also acknowledged the land that belonged to the indigenous people we were occupying especially during this conference. I am glad that MANY had a presentation on how to bring justice to museums Omar Eaton-Martinez discussed with conference participants. I also enjoyed the opportunity to visit the art museum in Syracuse where the Opening Session was located. I was able to see an exhibit that incorporated art and basketball called “Hoop Dreams: Basketball & Contemporary Art”, and I thought it was interesting that there was a small court where we were able to shoot basketballs into the hoops. One of the pieces I found interesting was a flower made of deflated basketballs.

There were a few sessions that I attended that stood out to me. One of the sessions I enjoyed was “Relationship Building for Educating Our Community” which focused on how museums can collaborate with indigenous communities to create educational programming and events by sharing one museum’s experience in planning an event with a local indigenous community. I enjoyed and learned a lot from the “Everyone’s Got a Woodstock Story” session because the speakers demonstrated how to conduct an oral history interview and asked participants to be a part of the Woodstock Oral History project if they had a Woodstock-related story to share. I was glad that I attended the “Everyone’s Got a Woodstock Story” session since my historical society is currently working on preserving oral history interviews and it was helpful to see what the session speakers were doing for their oral history interview recordings. Another session I really enjoyed, for example, was “For Us and For Our Communities” which was about a museum rally and creating STEAM programs; in this session, we had an opportunity to speed network with other session participants as well as participate in a museum rally (a bunch of museums that partner with each other to set up stations for each group of visitors to participate in activities). In the museum rally, at one station we learned about horses from a horse skull; another was learning about circuits using a tiny light bulb and Play-Doh; and another one about butterflies and symmetry.

During the conference, I would have liked it if I could attend multiple sessions at once. Also, while I was attending the session and looking back at the experience, I would like to have a way to visit online to get access to presentations of sessions I both attended and not have been able to attend so I would have access to resources I can refer to for reference in my museum work. I really appreciated that I received the scholarship so I would have the opportunity to attend the MANY conference and connect with many museum professionals from across the state.

Book Review: Creating Meaningful Museum Experiences for K-12 Audiences

February 3, 2022

Cover for Creating Meaningful Museum Experiences for K-12 Audiences edited by Tara Young

I recently read the book Creating Meaningful Museum Experiences for K-12 Audiences: How to Connect with Teachers and Engage Students which is a series of articles edited by Tara Young offering comprehensive insight at best practices in working with K-12 audiences including teachers and students. I appreciate that there is a number of different perspectives in the field to contribute to this book so readers can learn from museum professionals who work in more than one type of museum. The book is divided into four parts to help organize the articles based on topics: Setting the Stage, Building Blocks, Questions and New Paradigms, and Solutions and Innovative Models. Each part has six or seven chapters written by various writers in the museum education field.

The Setting the Stage section focuses on establishing and financing K-12 programs as well as on how to engage with students. In the Building Blocks section, the chapters discuss the core elements of successful programming including mission alignment, educator recruitment and training, working with teacher advisory boards, and anti-racist teaching practices.

Questions and New Paradigms has case studies in which museum education practitioners reconsider established approaches to museums’ work with schools and engage in iterative processes to update and improve them. It is important to see case studies especially within books since we need to see examples of practical practices not just discussing theory in museum education. The fourth section, Solutions and Innovative Models, provides examples of programs that were reimagined for the current status of museum/school collaborations.

This book covers a wide range of topics in museum education including but are not limited to the field trip past and present, financial realities of the education department in museums, integrating engineering and empathy in the preschool/kindergarten classroom, creating effective teacher advisory boards, building a new model for staffing school programs, sustainable training for museum education staff, mastering field trip logistics, virtual learning, and teaching slavery at historic sites and lessons learned. It is an important book for both emerging and experienced museum professionals who need to have a better understanding of museum education practices. I plan to continue to refer to this book in my career and to utilize it for the book project I began last year.

To learn more about Creating Meaningful Museum Experiences for K-12 Audiences, check out the link here: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538146798

To learn more about the book project I started last year, take a look at the Buy Lindsey a Coffee! page on the website.

Website Examination: Museum Learning Hub

December 2, 2021

I chose to take a closer look at a website that focuses on professional development for museum professionals. Museum Learning Hub is a website I follow to help me develop skills as a museum professional. According to their website, it is a nationwide initiative organized by the six U.S. regional museum associations and is dedicated to providing free, self-paced training resources for small museums made possible by the Institute of Museum and Library Services National Leadership Grant for Museums Award. I appreciate that they are able to provide these resources for free since most small museums do not have a professional development budget for their employees; therefore, providing more accessible resources can help museum professionals especially those who work in small museums develop their skills to perform their tasks in their museums. The Hub is created as part of the Digital Empowerment for Small Museums Project, which focuses on providing capacity-building programs and resources in the areas of digital media and technology for small museums.

I like how it is easy to navigate through the website to access webinars and additional resources. The toolkits, that are included in each module, provide more details from individual sessions and resources to help museum professionals learn more about a specific topic covered in the session. The website also includes forums and Ask an Expert forum in which users can click on the forum name to see the discussions, get advice, share ideas and resources, and get technical support from student technology fellows. Some of the topics that are covered in their webinars include but are not limited to digital accessibility and inclusion, live streaming, managing digitization projects, virtual exhibitions, podcasts, video production, and audiences and analytics for museums. They release webinars each week live on their website and have past recordings and transcripts available to catch up on topics discussed in previous weeks.

To learn more about the website and to participate in webinars, check out the link below.

Link:

Museum Learning Hub

Reflections on Museum Education Since COVID Part 2: Shared Challenges Around the World During the Pandemic

July 15, 2021

One of my previous blog posts I posted shared reflections on the museum education since the pandemic reached the United States. Since this pandemic has made an impact on all of us around the world, I thought I would share information from museum associations outside of the United States. It is important for U.S. museum professionals to remember that we can learn from museums outside of the United States for ways to deal with challenges in the field. One of the most recent examples of museums learning from one another is how to continually serve the communities we are a part of while the current coronavirus pandemic has changed how we interact in the world. Each museum association I have been following released resources to help museum professionals engage with their communities while we continue to face the pandemic.

The first one I follow is Museums Association (MA). The MA was established in 1889 which made it the oldest museums association in the world, and it represents 14,000 individual members, 1,800 museums and 300 commercial members. According to their website, a small group of museum professionals founded Museums Association to foster mutual cooperation among curators and institutions. During the pandemic, Museums Association released a statement on extending emergency Covid measures; they stated:

The Museums Association is fighting hard to ensure museums get the support and investment they need to see them through the Covid pandemic. In light of the ongoing nature of the crisis, we are calling on the UK and devolved governments to extend the emergency measures that have been so essential to the sector during this time.

I included a link to their full statement in the list below. The MA released some resources in addition to their statement. They shared some considerations to put in place before welcoming visitors back that came from the National Museum Directors’ Council (NMDC) good practices guidelines; the purpose of the guidelines is to set out the roadmap out of the current lockdown for England and explains how restrictions will be eased over time. There are nine considerations that museums need to remember; some of the considerations are Government has clearly announced that museums and galleries can reopen; Workforce safety and wellbeing can be supported; Public safety can be assured; and Museums are confident that visitors will return, and they can provide services in keeping with their public purpose. When there are updates needed to be made to the guidelines, they made notes of where on the guidelines it was changed and what was updated. The full guidelines document is available on the NMDC website.

The International Council of Museums (ICOM), according to their website, is an international organization of museums and museum professionals which is committed to the research, conservation, continuation, and communication to society of the world’s natural and cultural heritage, present and future, tangible, and intangible. ICOM is the only global organization in the museum field. They also released a few resources on the pandemic and re-opening the museum. One of the resources they released was “Museums and end of lockdown: Ensuring the safety of the public and staff”, and in this page the basic measures are organized into seven categories including preparing for the arrival of the public, public access—adapting the flow of visitors, and in the office. I included a few of the measures from their page here:

PREPARING FOR THE ARRIVAL OF THE PUBLIC

Define a maximum number of visitors per exhibition room and inform the public (it is recommended to set a maximum number of people per square meters to allow a safety distance of 1.5 m between each visitor)
Consider a gradual reopening of exhibitions
As far as possible, set up a booking system (online, by phone and/or by e-mail). Set up an online ticketing system. Online tickets can be scanned by visitors themselves at the entrance to the museum

PUBLIC ACCESS – ADAPTING THE FLOW OF VISITORS

Avoid or manage lines at entrances and counters
Consider ground markings for lines to ensure that the recommended distance of 1.5 m is maintained
Close the cloakrooms requiring the presence of staff (lockers can remain available if they are disinfected regularly between uses) to avoid unnecessary handling and contact

IN THE OFFICE

Consider sustainable adaptation of emergency plans
Extend work loans to minimize movement, handling, and transportation
Common equipment used by several staff members will need to be disinfected regularly. In the absence of disinfection standards, this equipment shall not be used

They also pointed out that if museums are not in the position to respond to the measures, then the museums should extend their temporary closings.

Another museum organization I follow is Museums Galleries Scotland. I first became aware of them when I was asked to be a speaker in their webinar about the future of museum education last year. Museums Galleries Scotland, according to their website, is the National Development Body for the Scottish museums sector. They support 419 museums and galleries, through strategic investment, advice, advocacy, skills development, et. cetera. I saw on their website they released a page of resources titled “Coronavirus Guidance for Museums” which is divided into three categories: Operational Guidance, Reopening Guidance, and Remote Working and Online Engagement. One of their pages included “Business continuity during COVID-19” which provide information for museums currently dealing with the effects of COVID-19 or the Coronavirus outbreak; some of information focused on financial support, business continuity advice, and best practice to follow.

The above examples I shared is only a sample of what museum associations outside of the United States are distributing on their websites. If there are any resources that you do not see here, please share in the comments below.

I’m on Buy Me a Coffee. If you like my work, you can buy me a coffee and share your thoughts. More information about additional benefits for supporting my work can be found here: https://lookingbackmovingforwardinmuseumeducation.com/buy-me-a-coffee-page/

Links:

Reflections on Museum Education Since COVID Arrived in the United States Part 1

Museums Association

MA Latest Statement

MA COVID-19 Page

MA Reopening Museums Good Practice Guidelines

MA Learning and Engagement Manifesto

NMDC Good Practice Guidelines for Reopening Museums

International Council of Museums

ICOM Museums and the End of Lockdown

ICOM How to Reach your Public Remotely

ICOM Smart Museums to Face the Crisis

Museum Galleries Scotland

MGS Coronavirus Guidance for Museums

Pride Month and the Museum Field: Museums Interpret and Share LGBTIQ+ History

June 17, 2021

We should remember why we celebrate Pride Month and museums especially have the responsibility for educating the public about LGBTIQ+ history that has long been neglected to be told. June is LGBTIQ+ Pride Month which honors the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan as it was the tipping point for the Gay Liberation Movement in the United States. Stonewall Inn was one of the most popular gay bars in New York City back in 1969, and until 1966 it was illegal to serve alcohol to a gay person in New York State. Throughout the United States, police raids on gay bars and spaces during this time. The purpose of Pride Month as a commemorative month is to recognize the impact that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals have had on history locally, nationally, and internationally.

In more recent years we celebrate by having pride parades, picnics, parties, workshops, symposia and concerts, and LGBTIQ+ Pride Month events attract millions of participants around the world. Pride Month last year and this year has been different due to the pandemic. Last year, the museum field honored Pride Month on the virtual platform. Hilary-Morgan Watt (the Digital Engagement Manager for the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden) and Emily Haight (the Social Media Manager at the New-York Historical Society) wrote a short post for the American Alliance of Museums’ blog to advertise the #MuseumPrideParade on Twitter encouraging museums and museum professionals to share items in their museums’ collections relevant to LGBTIQ+ history. According to the authors, the campaign they created at the time of their post was the third global campaign organized by the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the New-York Historical Society during the pandemic, following #MuseumBouquet and #MuseumSunshine. Watt and Haight pointed out that:

We decided Pride was the right opportunity for a third campaign, to help museums celebrate in place of the exhibits, film screenings, programs, and parade-marching many would normally be participating in. How do you participate? It’s simple—showcase images from Pride marches and other LGBTQIA+ protests throughout history, or other objects and stories from LGBTQ history, using the #MuseumPrideParade hashtag, and choose another institution to tag as your virtual marching partner.

For example: We’re sharing [object] for the #MuseumPrideParade and marching with [@institution].

The Museum Pride Parade took place last year on June 10^th at 11am on Twitter.

While we are still going through this pandemic, we still honor Pride Month and each museum does so in varying ways depending on if they are planning to have events and programs in person, virtually, or hybrid. I included links to various events and programs museums are doing for Pride Month in the list below to show what is happening. Also, I included a couple of links from last year’s Pride Month in the list.

A lot of the programs and events especially in museums aim to educate participants in LGBTIQ+ history. It is important for museum professionals to remember that LGBTIQ+ history is not just in one month. There are museums that not only incorporate LGBTIQ+ history into their programs but also do outreach in the LGBTIQ+ community, and I saw some examples of this in the December 2020 edition of the Journal of Museum Education called Queering the Museum. One of the articles was Benjamin Rowles’ “LGBTIQ+-Themed Education at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna-Guided Tours with a Drag Queen” in which he pointed out the museum he began working for in 2016 holds countless European Old Master paintings and some of them can be interpreted to reference queer themes, yet there was a lack of LGBTIQ+ outreach. Rowles decided that since in addition to working in a museum he also works as a drag queen, he will combine both to provide guided tours as a drag queen; his article shared the experience of the offered guided tours that lasted for a few years.

Another example of an article in this edition of the Journal of Museum Education was “Intuition and Vulnerability: A Queer Approach to Museum Education” written by Eli Burke, the Education Director at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson. Burke’s article explored intuition and vulnerability through an intergenerational arts program called Stay Gold that is specifically for the LGBTIQA+ community and its relationship to museum education. The main point of the article is that it seeks to examine how queerness is connected to both intuition and vulnerability, and how the Stay Gold program impacts the lives of LGBTIQA+ participants through that lens.

Danielle Bennett, who has previously worked on LGBTQIA+-related projects at Amy Kaufman Cultural Planning and the New York Historical Society, also contributed an article for the Journal of Museum Education called “Lessons from Glen Burnie: Queering a Historic House Museum”. She made a case in the article for including queer narratives in historic house museums since including queer history in public history settings is important in its own right and as a way to invigorate museum interpretations and appeal to wider audiences.

Also, in the same article Bennett dispels concerns about “outing” historical actors and describe some language and ways of thinking about historical sexuality to assist educators in their interpretation. Then it shifts into the case study of Glen Burnie, a historic house museum that completely revised its interpretation to center the house’s last residents and its preservationists, a gay male couple; Glen Burnie’s interpretive shift leverages the efforts of both men to create public and private domestic experiences that create an immersive new house tour experience and can be used to create a critique of the portrayal of gender roles and heteronormativity at many historic house museums. More articles can be found in the fourth edition of the 45^th volume in the Journal of Museum Education, and I included a link to current and past editions.

How are you honoring Pride Month this year?

Links:

Library of Congress: Pride Month

Library of Congress: Stonewall Uprising

Journal of Museum Education

AAM Pride goes Virtual

Pride at the Smithsonian

World Pride at The Met

Western Museums Association Pride Month Sources

8 LGBTQ Objects to Celebrate Pride 2020

Announcement: Upcoming Book Project I Am Working On

April 23, 2021

When I started my Buy Me A Coffee page, my plan was to use the support for the blog and website to publish a book that would be relevant for the museum field.

Today, I am announcing the book project that I have been researching and beginning the process of writing for. The book I am writing is on the coronavirus and the museum field. My goals for writing this book are to

preserve the history of the coronavirus pandemic from the perspective of the museum field,
describe the history of the previous pandemic over 100 years before this pandemic and how the actions taken in the past are relevant to what we have experienced starting at least since March 2020, and
discover how we all will move forward with the lessons we have learned.

It is a relevant book because the pandemic has made a significant impact on all around the world especially museum workers who engage with the public both within the community and inside the museum walls. A book like this one is beneficial for museum professionals, museum lovers, and individuals interested in history especially history of modern medicine.

To write a book like this one, it is important to compile numerous resources such as relevant books, articles, and posts that will support the goals the writer set for their book. I have compiled a lengthy list of resources I am reviewing, and I will continue to compile and review resources before I finalize the official list of resources to be utilized for writing the book.

To help support this project and learn the benefits of supporting it, check out the Buy Me a Coffee Page I created here: https://lookingbackmovingforwardinmuseumeducation.com/buy-me-a-coffee-page/

Now What? How We Should Be Looking Back and Moving Forward in the Museum Field, 2021 and Beyond

February 25, 2021

Since we have begun distributing the coronavirus vaccine, we have a new president in the Oval Office, and many changes were made for all of us to adapt to ever changing conditions, I think the question that has been on a lot of our minds is: Now what?

We are not out of the woods yet, and we need to do our part in controlling the pandemic. In the museum field, museum professionals are working on creating experiences for either the virtual platform or limited capacity in-person.

They understand that the plans we originally had for museums have drastically changed course due to the pandemic, and like everyone else we are figuring out how we could keep our places running. Museums around the world are figuring out their next steps if they are not permanently closed. I went through a good number of resources to research what museum associations are sharing with the museum field for keeping the museums running as the pandemic continues and vaccinations are being distributed.

The American Alliance of Museums released a post on their site called “Should my museum require staff and visitors to wear face masks when we reopen?” to share resources museums could utilize to enforce CDC guidelines. Each piece of information that is shared is not intended as legal, employment/human resources, or health and safety advice but rather they are based on the best available resources at the time the post was published. There are sections used to classify available information museums should seriously consider when re-opening the physical sites. When figuring out how your museum will enforce regulations as the pandemic continues to affect our daily lives, these are the types of information you need to take into consideration:

CDC guidance
State/local laws
Legality and the Americans with Disabilities Act for employees and for visitors
Training on proper use of masks
Accessibility
Equity and racial implications
Availability of masks
Tensions over masks, enforcement of policies, and employee training *Information is also available to help figure out how to enforce policies and who will enforce them.
Communication

Once your museum has developed a plan and know how to enforce the policies, it will ease how your museum will move forward throughout the pandemic.

The Network of European Museum Organisations (NEMO) released a follow up report on the continued impact of COVID-19 on the museum sector, and I have included links below if you would like to read more about it. According to their announcement, NEMO pointed out that:

Suitable support is needed for museums to build on their digital momentum. Almost all museums offer online activities, but an overwhelming majority admit that they actually need assistance and guidance in their digital transition.

NEMO recommends that museums stay open during these challenging times to offer people a place for rest and emotional recovery. There have been no reported cases of museums being infection hotspots. On the contrary, most museums are very well-equipped to allow for a Covid-19-safe experience for both visitors and employees.

NEMO included a link to their follow up report pdf within their post. Their report follows the initial survey, report, and recommendations about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on museums during the first lockdown. According to their follow-up report, this survey was answered by 600 museums from 48 countries between October 30, 2020 and November 29, 2020, and the majority of the answers came from Europe. They sought to investigate the different themes that emerged in the first survey they released and were discussed within the museum community; the themes were: consequences of income (and other) losses, the increased importance of digital museum offers, and adapted operations and preparedness during and for crises.

I appreciate that their report had a disclaimer that stated while the results are not guaranteed as representative of current circumstances, it offers a view into the perceived consequences and challenges faced by museums as well as their efforts to overcome them and serve their communities during a pandemic. It is important to address that while there is important information to provide an idea of how museums should move forward it is important to remember that things are not always guaranteed and predictable; new strands of the coronavirus were discovered since the report was released.

The report went into detail about the issues museums face in this pandemic, survey results, and the recommendations that NEMO addresses to stakeholders at all levels. Each issue is split into three sections: Income Losses and Consequences, Development of Digital Services, and Adapted Operations and Crisis Preparedness. In terms of bringing visitor numbers back to normal, the report stated that:

Museums were asked when they estimated visitor numbers could return to their pre-COVID-19 levels. The majority (45%) of 283 responding museums do not estimate a full recovery of visitor numbers until the months between March and September 2021. 15% are prepared to wait until the spring or summer of 2022 before they will welcome the same visitor numbers as before the pandemic.

In addition to looking through these reports, I decided to look at resources outside of the museum field to see what museum professionals could utilize in their own practices for the museums they work for.

I found in my research tips for a successful remote or hybrid curriculum adoption from Amplify, which is an education company that partners with educators to create meaningful learning experiences in schools, whether it is helping to create a professional development plan, working shoulder to shoulder in the classroom, or providing real-time support in a chat window on a teacher’s laptop. Also known as DECIDE, the tips are:

TIP 1 Design the process.

When something unpredictable happens, in the process or in the educational environment, your plan will function as a framework you can adjust as you move forward.

TIP 2 Experience the programs.

You know you need to evaluate each program, but consider exactly how your committee will do that, and how disagreements will be resolved.

TIP 3 Convene a dream team.

The right team can make a complex adoption easier. Group dynamics are important, but think about how you will solicit individual feedback as well.

TIP 4 Investigate short-term and long-term needs.

Discuss with the committee how well your current instructional philosophy aligns with your short-term and long-term goals.

TIP 5 Develop the right rubric.

Using a rubric not only helps you measure what matters, but also ensures that your entire team measures the same things in the same way.

TIP 6 Establish consensus among your stakeholders.

How you make your final decision is a process unto itself. Determine in advance how you will resolve disagreements together.

These tips could be used for education programs in museums since we are figuring out how to engage with student groups like many educators outside of the museum field. Museum educators need to develop an effective curriculum so they can help other educators supplement their own curricula, and this is true before the pandemic and it is just as true now. Our programs need a framework to fall back on when things do not go to plan, an effective evaluation plan and team to know what is working and what needs to change, and to know the short-term and long-term needs of the program to be able to find out what the students took away from it.

By no means this is a conclusive list of things museums need to do moving forward within the pandemic. I encourage you all to take a closer look at not only the sources I introduced in this post but to also look at museum associations in your area for additional resources.

I’m on Buy Me a Coffee. If you like my work, you can buy me a coffee and share your thoughts. ☕ https://buymeacoffee.com/lbmfmusedblog

Links:

https://www.aam-us.org/2021/01/30/should-my-museum-require-staff-and-visitors-to-wear-face-masks-when-we-reopen/

https://www.ne-mo.org/news/article/nemo/nemo-follow-up-report-on-the-continued-impact-of-covid-19-on-the-museum-sector.html

NEMO COVID-19 Follow Up Report

DECIDE: 6 tips for a successful remote or hybrid curriculum adoption

Amplify

https://www.aam-us.org/2020/12/22/a-pandemic-time-capsule-and-tools-for-2021/

https://www.aam-us.org/2020/11/25/for-post-pandemic-success-get-creative-with-distributed-museum-models/

Distance Learning with Intention and Purpose

Fostering Academic Discussion Online

Improving Accessibility for All Students

https://achievethecore.org/aligned/tag/remote-learning/

Book Review: For Love or Money Confronting the State of Museum Salaries

January 21, 2021

MuseumsEtc, an independent publishing house based in Edinburgh and Boston on books for museum and gallery professionals, published the book For Love or Money: Confronting the State of Museum Salaries edited by Dawn E Salerno, Mark S. Gold, and Kristina L Durocher. I chose this book because museum salary is still a relevant topic in the field, and I have wanted to write this book review for a while. Now I am glad that I am re-visiting this book since I am going to be writing more book reviews for this blog. I recommend checking out this book, especially for individuals who are new to the museum field, since each section is incredibly detailed in the topic of what is going on for museum salaries.

It is also a relevant topic now as the pandemic hit the museum field hard (like most if not all professional fields). Many museum professionals faced layoffs, furloughs, salary cuts, schedules cut, et. cetera when museums closed or continue to offer online experiences as a result of the pandemic. There are some that have re-opened their sites to limited capacity and some even require purchasing tickets ahead of the visit. As we continue to move forward, we need to revisit museum salaries. We as a museum field need to continue to make progress in equity for gender and salary, and having these conversations as well as sharing our thoughts, ideas, and actions are important steps in improving the state of the museum field.

Cover of For Love or Money: Confronting the State of Museum Salaries

For Love or Money is a collection of chapters written by various museum professionals within the museum field. Inside the book, there are twenty-four chapters and are divided into four sections: the state of museum salaries, causes and effects, addressing the issues, and turning talk into action. There are at least 29 museum professionals who have contributed their thoughts and research to this book.

I appreciate that not only are there table charts but also cartoon depictions to illustrate and stress the points being made inside the book. In Taryn R Nie’s “Far Too Female: Museums on the Edge of a Pink Collar Profession” for instance, they included a table chart of compensation expenditure as a percentage of the operating budget and a table chart of gender ratio by position; an example from the gender ratio (according to the AAM 2017 National Museum Salary Survey) is the amount of museum professionals who held the position of volunteer coordinator who identify as male was 12.5 percent and those who identify as female was 86.8 percent.

In Emily Tuner’s “What’s Going on In This Picture? Museum Education as Undervalued Labor”, she included a number of cartoon panels that describe and illustrate the points she made in her chapter of the book. One of them labeled The price of entry to full-time museum education work displayed a hopeful candidate asking a museum professional about a full-time museum education position but was told despite her experience she was qualified for a part-time museum education position.

Also, I appreciate how much detail each writer put into their chapters as well as the amount of research they have included within the text and in their resource sections. In Charlotte Martin, Sarah Maldonado, and Anthea Song’s “A Case for Salary Transparency in Job Postings”, for instance, their chapter described how salary transparency in job postings is a relatively easy step towards the goal for assuring diversity and equity in museum and cultural institution employees, and they described New York City Museum Educators Roundtable’s (NYCMER) transition into changing their policy for all posting jobs on their job board to have salary transparency.

On an additional note, I thought it was really awesome to see a tweet I had posted during the NYCMER conference in 2018 on the announcement of the policy change for their job board.

I recommend checking out this book for yourselves to learn more about what each museum professional has discussed about museum salaries and salary transparency.

If you like this book review and would like to see more of these posts on the blog, find out how you can become a supporter of the blog and website by “buying me a coffee”. Check out the link here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lbmfmusedblog.

Link: https://museumsetc.com/

Should Museums Die? A Conversation about Reforming the Museums

August 6, 2020

Last weekend there was a Death to Museums unconference that was livestreamed on August 1^st and 2^nd, and is now available to view on their YouTube channel. According to their website, Death to Museums is inspired by 2019 edition of FWD:Museums, a journal produced by students and faculty in the Museum and Exhibition Studies program at the University of Illinois at Chicago:

At the time of publication, the journal questioned whether museums can continue “business as usual” or if they should be reimagined anew. We find renewed relevance in this theme at a moment when museums are collapsing before our very eyes. We challenge the idea of returning to “normal” once the pandemic ends when “normal” means inequality, instability, extremely low wages, and an embarrassing lack of diversity across museum staff. Instead, we want to harness the collective potential of museum workers working towards radical change.

The way they challenged the idea of returning to “normal” was the unconference, and on each day there were presentations covering a wide-range of topics that focused on the goal to challenge oppressive museum practices and change the practices for the better. Some of the sessions include but not limited to A Proposal to White Museums, Museum Empathy and Compassion Fatigue: How Museums Can Support Staff Wellness, Not “Now, More Than Ever”—How Museums Can Talk Straight in Weird Times, Museum Internships Past, Present, and Future: Dismantling Systems of Powers from the Ground Up, and Dismantling Barriers to Progressive Action. I recommend watching all of the sessions to see for yourselves the discussions about reforming museum practices.

While we are all focusing on protecting each other and staying safe during the pandemic, museum professionals are taking advantage of this opportunity to discuss the changes that need to be made and had needed to be made for a long time now. Among the many calls for change in the museum field, museum professionals discuss the issues museums have not made enough progress in resolving especially during this pandemic including poor pay, anti-union, gender pay gap, and other inequitable and inhumane behaviors that turned museum professionals away from the field. I have also discussed some of the issues that were presented in the sessions in previous blog posts, especially under the What’s Going on in the Museum Field section. Reform in the museum practices is really needed, and before making changes we also need to address as well as acknowledge the foundations of museums that led us to this point. The changes we need to make not only should be focused on the institutions but also on the individuals working in the museums such as encouraging more self-care.

What do you think about death to museums? What would you want to see from museums moving forward?

Check out the links below on death to museums and related discussions.

Links:

https://deathtomuseums.com/

https://leadershipmatters1213.wordpress.com/2020/08/03/is-calling-for-their-death-the-path-to-fixing-museums-a-leadership-agenda-2021/

https://news.artnet.com/opinion/limits-of-care-and-knowledge-yesomi-umolu-op-ed-1889739?

What’s Going on in the Museum Field

Museum Educator: A Vital Role in the Museum-Community Partnership

July 23, 2020

While all museum roles within the building are important in their own functions to keep the museum running, museum educators are especially significant now as we figure out life and learning in this next normal. I have been reading for months through social media my museum field colleagues’ posts on layoffs, furloughs, and not being able to continue job hunting due to the pandemic; many of those posts were from museum educators who find themselves furloughed, laid off, or their job hunting became harder or completely stopped. Also, the Tenement Museum Union announced on Twitter that 76 employees were laid off, including all of their part-time educators. It is sad to see so many museum educators are being let go when they are needed especially during this time for more engaging programs. Museums should find ways to survive through the pandemic, but I do not believe that letting museum educators go is the solution.

I do not claim that there is one solution or method to keeping the museum afloat in this unprecedented time since all museums are facing varying circumstances that effect their ability to function onsite and/or virtually. A recent survey shared by the American Alliance of Museums revealed unsettling information about the state of museums:

One-third (33%) of respondents were not confident they would be able to survive 16 months without additional financial relief, and 16 percent felt their organization was at significant risk of permanent closure. The vast majority (87%) of museums have only 12 months or less of financial operating reserves remaining, with 56% having less than six months left to cover operations. Forty-four percent had furloughed or laid off some portion of their staff, and 41 percent anticipated reopening with reduced staff.

It is a reality that many museums are facing in the United States, and a huge loss for the communities that rely on the resources museums offer. Numerous considerations need to be addressed but we should not consider letting go staff members as the number one option on keeping museums financially supported. When we let go of the majority of our museum educators, we face a number of consequences.

Over the years I have been writing about museum education, I expressed the importance of the museum educators’ role in not only the museum but in the communities they serve as well. In the “Museum Education Challenges: Why We Need Museum Educators” post, for instance, I have discussed the demand for digital content for museum programming and how museums need to adapt to increasingly changing needs of the community:

Like schoolteachers in the classroom, museum educators were forced to learn to adapt quickly to teaching lessons that are normally taught in person now online in varying platforms including Zoom, Google, and YouTube. Even though most museum educators have already begun teaching on the online platform before the pandemic, not all museums had utilized teaching programs online. Providing education programs is a continuous process for museum educators and losing personnel in the education department would be a disservice to our museums, communities, and our nations.

If we do not have enough museum educators to meet the demands of the schools, camps, scouts, home schools, et. cetera looking for help with virtual lessons and resources, our museums would not be able to claim that they are part of the community they serve. Another example of a blog post I wrote to discuss the importance of museum education in the museum and community is the one called “How Education Theory is Used in Museums”. In this post, I wrote about how museums develop programs based on not only museum association standards but also on the state and national standards for education:

By developing an education policy in museums, it will help guide the education department in when drafting programs that will hopefully be accessible to its audiences, fulfill its mission, and appeal to teachers looking for outside the classroom opportunities.

If we lose the majority of our educators, we will create a disconnect between museums and educational institutions including but not limited to public schools, private schools, and home school groups. While it is possible that the majority of museums may not consider letting go of higher-level museum education professionals, we cannot make the assumption that all museums will not let go of their education managers or directors. As education standards change, and as school districts change how their school years will be executed, museums need to keep up with the changes and maintain contacts with other educators to prevent themselves from falling behind as well as being able to develop education programming relevant to the school groups that come to visit both in person and online.

In other words, each of the previous blog posts I mentioned both within this post and in the resource section below point out that letting go of museum educators is disconnecting ourselves from the communities we claim to be a part of and serve. I came across a post called “Caution: Laying Off Museum Educators May Burn Bridges to the Communities Museums Serve” in which an evaluator shares their perspective of the importance of museum educators especially within the K-12 community. Some of the points they made were:

The teachers highly value the respect and support they receive from museum educators. The work of K-12 educators is hard and can go unnoticed. But of all the museum educators I know, they consider K-12 educators essential to the well-being of our students and communities. As such, museum educators’ frame their work as bolstering the self-regard and confidence of K-12 educators.

…

Sometimes the students point out something they see to the museum educator, but other times the conversation is completely un-museum related—they just seem to seek adult engagement and interest. These individual museum educators are important to them. This was underscored to me when I administered assessments to students in the program. Students, knowing they were doing something related to the museum program, immediately asked me where are their museum educators (Adam, Ah-Young, Alicia, Barbara, Lindsey, Sarah, Suzannah)? They were notably disappointed to see me instead of their friends at the museum.

…

The kinds of relationships I have observed as an evaluator clearly demonstrates to me that museum educators are essential to a museum’s missions. Museum educators are often the name and face of the museum to the community. If these names and faces go away, I worry museum will have burned bridges into their communities.

As a museum educator myself, I especially agree with the observation that museum educators create connections with the students they teach within the programs. I remember a number of instances throughout my career in the museum education field when some kids are working on projects and decided to create another project so they can give me a present as a way to thank me, and I remember how the kids would be comfortable sharing stories with me (museum and non-museum related). When visiting museums, children especially have the opportunity to connect with the world they live in and with the real-world concepts, artifacts, and documents to fully grasp the lessons they learn in the classroom. Museum educators help children and other audiences bridge the gap between the classroom and the world around us.

Like many museum professionals right now, I do not have the solution that would solve all problems museums are facing in the pandemic. The best we can do for now is to figure out the main priority to help museums survive, and getting rid of museum educators is not the priority we should have.

Resources:

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/07/22/894049653/one-third-of-u-s-museums-may-not-survive-the-year-survey-finds

https://www.aam-us.org/2020/07/22/a-snapshot-of-us-museums-response-to-the-covid-19-pandemic/

https://www.aam-us.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/2020_National-Survey-of-COVID19-Impact-on-US-Museums.pdf

https://hyperallergic.com/578201/tenement-museum-education-staff-layoffs/

Caution: Laying Off Museum Educators May Burn Bridges to the Communities Museums Serve

Museum Education Challenges: Why We Need Museum Educators

How Education Theory is Used in Museums

Education Programming: How Important Flexibility is in School Programs

The Importance of Education Management in Museums