Space Wands and Table Saws: Tools and Rules for Girls at California’s Science Centers (Part I)

By Leslie Madsen-Brooks

This series of three posts draws on research I originally undertook in 2001 and 2002.  It is a distillation of a much longer paper; if you’re interested in a literature review, a description of my research methods, more details from interviews, and deeper background on the topic, visit Museum Blogging.  For the purposes of the paper I was writing, I interviewed many science center employees, but many spoke off the record; accordingly, I have removed all interviewees’ names, and frequently any identifying information about their institutions, from this post.  This research was supported in part by a grant from the Consortium for Women and Research at the University of California, Davis.

Between 2001 and 2004, when I was working as an educator, exhibition developer, or occasional evaluator for Explorit Science Center in Davis, California, I often found myself standing in front of classrooms of elementary school children.  Chances were about even that one of the girls would say to me, “You’re pretty” or “I like your hair.”  Even some of their thank-you notes to me said such things, scrawled there at the end after “I learned that I will be 5 feet 6 inches tall.”  Boys wrote things like, “I learned dinosaurs poop and it turns into a rock.”  I wish the girls would, to a person, write about coprolites and gastroliths, about hissing roaches and the mites that swarm over giant millipedes’ legs.  In my experience, girls do seem interested in science, but the things they focus on and remember are much more person-oriented and bodily than are boys’ observations.

Photo by Rhys, and used under a Creative Commons license

When I mentioned my frustration with girls and the lack of opportunities available specifically to girls to a staff member at Explorit, she sighed and lamented that many of the center’s science-centered birthday parties have “boy” themes, like “Rockin’ the Earth” or “Dinosaurs and Reptiles.”  She suggested developing a birthday party focused on kitchen science.  And indeed, “Kitchen Chemistry” is one of the science center’s most popular special parent-child classes.  But must girls be left stirring in the kitchen, while the boys are in the multipurpose room making balloon rockets?

While many of the girls in the classes and birthday parties I oversaw seemed truly engaged with the hands-on science presented in the lessons, I wondered how many of them would nurture that interest through their teen years and into college.  Since K-16 schools too frequently fail to inspire girls and young women to pursue science, I want to see if informal science learning might be more successful.  In particular, I want to focus on the opportunities available to girls and young women at museums and science centers.

Over the past three decades, there has been incredible growth in both the quantity and quality of science museums and science centers throughout the United States, and especially in California.  During the same time period, it has become evident that traditional schooling systems have not been entirely successful in engaging young women in science.  While girls are enrolling in some advanced science classes at the same rates as their male counterparts, they still drop out of the “science pipeline.”  I undertook this project to discover what informal science learning activities science centers are developing to ensure that girls are made aware of and encouraged to pursue the incredible lifetime opportunities available to those who choose scientific careers.  This project explores, then, the informal science learning experiences available throughout childhood and adolescence and their success in sparking young women’s desires to pursue scientific careers.

Background

Science studies theorist Helen Longino emphasizes the necessity of rethinking how science is practiced and who counts as a practitioner:  “We cannot restrict ourselves simply to the elimination of bias, but must expand our scope to include the detection of limiting and interpretive frameworks and the finding or construction of more appropriate frameworks.”  She suggests that to bring girls and women into science, we must change not just the content of science, but its entire context.  In changing the context of science, Longino explains, we are trying to bring it into line with “the values and commitments we express in the rest of our lives” (1987, 60).  In short, if a community values women and the health of all its members, then it must encourage its resident women to participate in science.  But what institutions in a community can provide the framework needed to sustain girls’ and young women’s interests in science?

The answer may be simple.  Many metropolitan areas boast an impressive assortment of museums, science centers, zoos, aquaria, and botanical gardens.  These spaces are critical locations for not only public learning, but also public dialogue on a broad spectrum of issues.   Although much scholarly work has sought to elucidate the sources of social controversies in history and art museums and recommend ways to solve tensions within and between the communities museums serve, significantly less scholarly attention has been paid to science centers and how these museums’ exhibits and outreach programs affect girls’ and women’s perception of, and participation in, science.  This is unfortunate, for the research that does exist has uncovered gendered patterns of scientific learning that warrant greater attention.  Too see a summary of that research, visit the longer version of this essay.

California’s diverse urban communities pose additional challenges and opportunities for educational outreach.  How does a science museum ensure its exhibits speak to everyone, regardless of ethnicity, class, or gender?  In solving such quandaries, feminist science studies takes a decidedly antiracist stance, and seeks to include as many people as possible in conversations about the role of science in multicultural communities.  Some theorists believe that thoughtfully solving “the woman problem” will in large part take care of “the race problem” as well.  As Sandra Harding explains in Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?,

Women need sciences and technologies that are for women and that are for women in every class, race, and culture.  Feminists (male and female) want to close the gender gap in scientific and technological literacy, to invent modes of thought and learn the existing techniques and skills that will enable women to get more control over the conditions of their lives.  Such sciences can and must benefit men, too—especially those marginalized by racism, imperialism, and class exploitation.  (1991, 5)

The stakes are high.  Because they have such a close connection to the public—and often to public schools—museums can serve as excellent launching grounds for such a project, sometimes for no other reason than these institutions have excellent access to young people, whose excitement about and perceptions of scientific endeavors remain malleable.  These students have not yet been indoctrinated into the androcentric notions that pervade much of Western science—notions that serve to oppress vast portions of the world’s population through exclusion from participation in science or policies that endanger the health and lives of specific communities.

We must assess where museums stand now, and what steps they might take to increase the participation of women, and especially women of color, who remain underrepresented in nearly all branches of the natural and physical sciences.

Leslie Madsen-Brooks is an adjunct professor of museum studies at John F. Kennedy University and a consultant on issues of education and professional development.  If you liked this post, check out her blog Museum Blogging or contact Leslie directly: leslie -at- museumblogging -dot- com.  You can also sign up for her occasional newsletter on museum professional development.

Rights and Repro Discussion at the Gilcrease in Tulsa

By Michelle Maxwell

The gardens at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, OK

Recognized as one of the nation’s premier museums, Tulsa’s Gilcrease Museum features some of the finest and most-renowned collection of art, artifacts, and historical archives that document and depict the American experience. The Museum is a national treasure that generations of supporters have been proud to call their own.

I came on board the Gilcrease in July 2008 when the University of Tulsa and the City of Tulsa entered into an historic partnership to begin a new chapter in the life of the Gilcrease Museum.

In its new role as steward of the Museum and its collection, TU is leveraging its nationally recognized academic expertise in history of the American West, art history, anthropology and archaeology, law, management, and marketing to propel Gilcrease into a new era. Security and protection of the collection are important parts of our stewardship. Today, many museums are facing the challenges of maintaining current operations with a dwindling budget.

Protecting the collections includes not just the physical collection but also the intellectual property rights of that collection. The digital age has changed the rights and reproduction process making it much more complicated than it was in the ‘old’ days. Because of confusing, sometimes contradictory issues regarding intellectual property rights, many rights and repro staff are scrambling to keep up with the digital age. Registrars, curators, rights and reproduction coordinators, photographers, and collection’s managers have voiced a clear and growing need for reliable and understandable guidance on rights and reproduction issues.

The Gilcrease Museum is organizing a webcast that will feature two of the leading rights and reproduction attorneys from across the nation who will address some of these issues. This first webcast will be held in late February. If you are interested and would like more information, please contact me directly:

Michelle Maxwell, Rights & Reproduction

Gilcrease Museum

michelle-maxwell@utulsa.edu

(918) 596-2788 (918) 596-2770 fax

Before Moving Forward and Goin’ All Digital…a Glance Back

By James G. Leventhal

Westmuse Quarterly Newsletter

Last spring the Western Museums Association took its newsletter WestMuse digital in two ways.  The printed version became a pdf, thanks to Publications Manager Valerie Huaco and this blog got started for consistent, ongoing updates – an open forum for members, nonmembers and every once in a while friends from Australia and other countries, as a valued offering of the Western Museums Association.  The value you get and give others by investing in WMA.

The next step in WMA’s transformation will be to set up digital renewals and move all of the listings to that process. And thankfully you’ve encouraged it.  Accordingly, when a survey email was sent around by WMA Exective Director Elida Zelaya to supporters, asking if taking the newsletter digital was OK, there was a request from several members to make renewals digital, too.  Thank you.

Following #wma09 in San Diego, the Western Museums Association has taken on some necessary restructuring — to read more please see President Aldona Jonaitis’ post San Diego Sun, Sustainability and Seriousness.

And so WMA Board member Allyson Lazar is now heading up the effort toward digitization.  And along the way, just now she was going over the list of Corporate Sponsors.  It’s a great list.  Thanks again.

But as we transferred over the names from a spreadsheet to a web listing, preparing to move them into to a new web-based renewal system, we noticed that portions of the list were out-of-date.  These things happen.

C. David Robinson (1936-2008)

In fact, they’re quite typical for this kind of process.  You miss things.  Especially when supporters pass away, and if someone is not regularly going over the notices.  One of the names that was still on the WMA list was that of C. David Robinson.

The thing is, we could not let this pass without taking this opportunity to draw attention to a remarkable life that still only too recently left our midst in early 2008, and a life that shows just how rich one life can be.

As a supporter of the Western Museums Association, Robinson also represents the breadth of experience WMA stands for and, well, the indefinable character of the organization and the varied people and institutions engaged with WMA.

Chalfant David Robinson led one of those extraordinary twentieth-century lives.  He was born in 1936, in New York and moved to Washington, D.C. at a young age.  According to his obituary in The Washington Post (from which several details below are taken – to read the original article by Matt Schudel click here):

• Mr. Robinson attended St. Albans School and was a graduate of St. Paul’s School in Concord, N.H. He received a bachelor’s degree in art history from Princeton University in 1957.
• An outstanding athlete, Mr. Robinson was captain of the Princeton hockey team and participated in rowing. He competed in trials for the 1960 Olympics in crew and also played rugby.
• After college, he served as a Marine Corps officer for three years, and then entered graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania, receiving a master’s degree in architecture in 1965. His primary mentor at Penn was the renowned architect Louis Kahn.

“The (building’s) scale is intended to put visitors in the shoes of the small characters who inhabit the Peanuts world," C. David Robinson, Architect

Mr. Robinson began his career in San Francisco with the firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and in 1970 was a founder of Robinson, Mills & Williams. Later, he was a partner in the firm of Polshek and Partners before founding his own architecture office in 1997.

Additionally Robinson’s experience included:

• The Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for the Visual Arts at Stanford University
• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
• Yerba Buena Center for Visual Arts in San Francisco
• Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archives
• San Jose Museum of Art
• Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco
• Utah Museum of Fine Arts
• Washington State History Museum
• And designs for residences that house major art collections for such clients as Eli Broad, Frederick Weisman, Rene di Rosa, and John Berggruen

Redmond J. Barnett, WMA Board Member and Head of Exhibits at the Washington State Historical Society, remembers working with David Robinson in 1990 on the “program plan” for the Washington State History Museum – the instructions to the design architects about the size and location of each area: “David was tactful but firm, taking direction from the staff but not bashful in warning us to cut our grand ideas down to the probable budget.  His experience as a designer informed his advice as a planner.”

Robinson was also a notable art collector who contributed an important collection of 150 early photographs to the National Gallery of Art in 1995, including works by William Henry Fox Talbot, who is credited with inventing the photographic process in 1839, as well as prints by such pioneers of photography as Eugene Atget, Carleton Watkins, Paul Strand, Edward Weston, Walker Evans and Robert Frank.  As a a major collector of 20th-century art, he served on the boards of the San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archives at the University of California at Berkeley, among others.

Perhaps most famously, Robinson was the chief architect of the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa, Calif., which opened in 2002.  Speaking about the project Robinson told the Los Angeles Times in 2002, “Every design decision has been based on a single question: Would Sparky [Schulz's lifelong nickname] be comfortable here?” adding, “We have done our best to suggest the playful whimsy of his cartoon world.”

And the Schulz Museum has blossomed.  One of the more interesting aspects of the Museum and Research Center’s work is their traveling exhibitions.  Five years after the Museum and Research Center’s founding, they started traveling shows in 2007 and it’s a vibrant program.  The Schulz Museum now has available three exclusive traveling exhibitions that tell the Peanuts story:

• Inside Peanuts: The Life and Art of Charles M. Schulz, an in-depth exploration of Schulz’s creative process spanning his fifty-year career
• Peanuts at Bat examines the Peanuts Gang’s ill-fated baseball adventures and Schulz’s love of the game
• And To the Moon: Snoopy Soars with NASA covers the history of the Apollo 10 mission and the Peanuts characters’ role in that flight.

To the Moon: Snoopy Soars with Nasa started its tour at the San Diego Air and Space Museum this past September 2009, while WMA was in town.

Fishing for Fresh Ideas in San Diego

Rachael Faust is a JFKU museum studies graduate student. Previous to her academic studies, Rachael worked at the University Art Gallery at UCSD and at the Portland Art Museum. Since moving to the Bay Area, she has volunteered at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology and has been an intern at SFMOMA and the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle.

By Rachael Faust

After completing my first year at John F. Kennedy University, I spent the summer coping with the fact that I would soon be faced with the daunting task of undertaking a thesis project. Summer came and went, and at the end, I found myself without a revelation of what this dynamic topic would be.

As fall quarter quickly approached and as people began to inquire about my amazingly innovative thesis topic, I quickly devised plan B: crashing the 2009 Western Museums Association annual conference in San Diego where I hoped to find a veritable assortment of fresh ideas and topics just waiting for further exploration. Plan B turned out to be far more effective than plan A (waiting for a revelation). I encourage my fellow grads who are still on plan A to stop waiting and quickly sign up for a museum conference.

Of all the conferences I could attend, I chose WMA because of the interesting and diverse session topics and the manageable size and length of the conference (the student discount price was also rather alluring). A preconference workshop titled, “Navigating New Media In Collections without Going Adrift,” caught my attention because my current studies focus on collections management and I have become particularly interested in the care and preservation of time-based media works.

San Diego. Image courtesy of Lydia Johnson.

The presenters for this session included registrars from MOMA and LACMA as well as LA MOCA’s media exhibition technician and an LA based freelance media specialist. I hoped that the information they presented in this session as well as the questions raised by the museum professionals in attendance would point to areas that needed further investigation (read: my fingers were crossed in hopes that they had an extraordinary thesis topic for me).

The preconference workshop not only gave me a handful of possible areas to research that could lead to relevant thesis topics, but also gave me an opportunity to test out a few of my own ideas.

• Is it possible for museums to share or loan exhibition media equipment to one another?
• How are museum staff being trained to handle, install, preserve, and repair media works and their related equipment?
• What happens when artists don’t want to migrate their media-based artwork to newer formats? The work will eventually die. Should museums collect works with such short life spans? Do museums continue to store the remains of the dead artwork?

I was able to ask these questions and others to a captive, knowledgeable audience that I may not have had access to otherwise; the dialogue I enjoyed with museum professionals at WMA could not have been easily facilitated on my own.

In the proceeding days at the conference, I ran into several of the speakers, and they all went out of their way to stop me and say, “hey, I was thinking about your questions and….” Everyone I introduced myself to at the conference was excited that I was a student and was eager to learn about my potential thesis work.

The WMA conference exposed me to new ideas, expanded ideas I had already been tinkering with, and provided access to museum professionals from a diverse range of museums. I left the conference with a direction for my thesis work and at least a dozen business cards of museum people who said they would be more than happy for me to contact them in the future.

David Porter Presentation about #wma09 at #mcn2009

By James G. Leventhal and David Porter

Click here to viewDavid Porter at #MCN2009 Talking about #wma09David Porter’s presentation to the Museum Computer Network annual meeting in Portland this past Friday. THANK YOU, MCN for inviting WMA to be a part!  The following questions were asked:

Slide from Porter's Presentation ot the Museum Computer Network Conference Attendees in Portland 2009

• Describe the purpose, size, and topical scope of the conference.
• Describe the attendees, making an attempt to capture their occupations, roles, ages, experience level, interests, and the extent to which they engage with each other.
• What were some of the highlights of the conference for you? Best sessions? Best conversations? Most interesting person you met? Feel free to describe the top sessions in as much detail as you’d like.
• What were some of the takeaways from the conference? Did you resolve to act on something you heard there? Did you share information about the conference with colleagues (either inside or outside of your institution)?
• What would you change about the conference, if you could? (Keep this positive. One or two ideas only: we don’t want to alienate conference organizers from other meetings!)
• Was there a conference backchannel? Can you describe it? Did you participate in it?
• Would you attend again? How frequently?
• What was the cost of the conference (and of travel/lodging). Would you consider the conference good value for money?

And the other participants on the panel included:

TED – Nik Honeysett
CAA – Beth Harris and Steven Zucker
WebWise – Diane Zorich
SxSW – Paco Link
MW – Bruce Wyman
SI2.0 – Nancy Proctor
AAM – Douglas Hegley
AFTA – David Green
THATCamp – Beth Harris and Steven Zucker

Thanks for the invite, Susan Chun and MCN!  This is such a great way for us all to keep up evaluative process as we maintain a rolling assessment of the value of “carbon-based conferences.”

President’s Message: San Diego Sun, Sustainability and Seriousness

By Aldona Jonaitis

Aldona Jonaitis, President

First, I want to thank everyone involved for making the annual WMA Conference in San Diego such a successful event.  Special thanks go to Elida Zelaya and Valerie Huaco who worked tirelessly to welcome our arrival in San Diego.  I also want to thank the Program Committee and the Host Committee, both of whom corralled the collective wit and experience of colleagues and volunteers to present an excellent series of sessions, workshops and social events – many of which concentrated on issues of sustainability – a topic that is on everyone’s mind.   Finally, I would like to thank the vendors and sponsors who supported the Conference, including our lead sponsor, the Barona Cultural Center and Museum.

WMA San Diego 2009

As you may have heard at the Conference, the Western Museum Association is undergoing a restructuring process to ensure that our 74 year old organization continues to thrive.  Despite careful monitoring of the budget by the Board of Directors, WMA revenue is far below target, an unfortunate result of the strain felt by all not-for-profits during the current recession.

The goals of the restructure are to create a business model that cuts overhead costs and thus streamlines administrative activities.  The new model includes eliminating  the positions of Executive Director and Publications and Media Manager, closing the physical office located in Berkeley, CA, and investing in digital communications vs. printed materials, among other administrative cost reductions.

In the next few weeks, the Executive Committee and Task Force will create various business models that will consider 1.) maintaining the organization at a base level 2.) estimating costs and overhead associated with the 2010 Annual Meeting in Portland and 3.)possibly suspending the 2010 Annual Conference in Portland to invest resources in the 2011 Annual Meeting in Hawaii.  Each of these business models will take the best interests of the membership as our first priority.

We will also investigate  innovative ways to keep the membership involved and networking throughout the next three years.  We have discussed developing a series of regional events, sessions, webinars and partnerships with like professional organizations in an effort to serve you better. We welcome your ideas as we explore more ways to network throughout the region.

Each of our institutions have been faced with making difficult decisions in the last year and no decision is harder than that which involves talented  and devoted employees.  Please join me in thanking Elida Zelaya and Valerie Huaco for their hard work and dedication in serving the WMA.  On behalf of the Board and membership, I would like to thank each of them for their valued professional service and their heartfelt commitment to the organization.

We will continue to keep our members up to date on the progress of the objectives mentioned here.  Together with the Board, I am committed to the health and well being of this spectacular organization.  I am gratified that so many members and friends have already stepped forward to volunteer their help and I look forward to many more doing so.  Together we will thrive and celebrate happily the 75th anniversary of WMA in 2010!

I welcome your comments and invite you to contact me with any questions, concerns or ideas you would like to share.  My direct e-mail address and phone number are aldona@jonaitis.net and (907) 978-1903.

Engaging Diverse Audiences

Margaret Kadoyama's thirty years in the museum profession embrace extensive experience in audience development, community involvement and education strategic planning.

by Margaret Kadoyama

I was fortunate enough to attend the recent WMA conference in San Diego.   The conference provided at least one significant outcome for me — the discovery of a new report on engaging diverse audiences from the Japanese American National Museum, published in August 2009.

I attended a session on programming for Latino audiences.  The session, Museum Mission and Audience: Tips from Collaborations with Latino Communities, was moderated by Elizabeth Morin from Youth Arts and Education for the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

The presenters were Lisa Sasaki from the Japanese American National Museum, Lorraine Yglesias from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and David J. de la Torre from La Plaza de Cultura y Artes.   The session provided many great tools and tips for engaging Latino audiences, from David de la Torre’s articulate and compelling list of strategic issues (focus on mission, diversification of board and staff, marginalization, and cultural insensitivity, among others) to Lorraine Yglesias’s focus on marketing.

Lorraine shared some great resources, including the tip to subscribe to email reports from www.mediapost.com, which provides current information on marketing for different audience segments, including Latino audiences.

Lisa Sasaki shared tips from the JANM’s Boyle Heights project, and included information on museum attendance before, during and after the project.  Lisa also shared information about a white paper that JANM recently published called The Cultural Museum 2.0: Engaging Diverse Audiences in America.  It is available to download at http://www.janm.org/projects/innovation/.

The white paper is the result of a three year project, funded by The James Irvine Foundation, in which JANM was able to holistically reassess itself and its relationship with its audiences.  I read through it and found it articulate and very timely, focusing on the issues that culturally specific museums are grappling with right now.

The section on essential questions was particularly significant.  During the course of the project, the Museum began looking closely at the interests, wants and needs of its potential audiences.  According to the report (pages 12-13), the Museum addressed questions such as:

• To what extent is the visitor experience influenced by cultural or ethnic self-identification?
• What is the relevance of the Museum to younger, multi-ethnic audiences?
• How can the Museum develop programming to engage and sustain these audiences?
• How can the Museum engage new audiences while sustaining and satisfying its current constituency?
• What impact does engaging these audiences have on the ability for the Museum to sustain itself in the future?

These essential questions mirror concerns voiced by many museums, and the report goes on to include the results of the project’s research and recommendations to address these issues.  It is timely and relevant.  I teach the JFKU Museums and Communities course, and this will definitely be required reading for the spring M&C class!

Getting Caught Up with WMA 2009

by Allyson Lazar

WMA Board Members convene near the end of the conference

Last week roughly 400 museum professionals from the Western Region and beyond* gathered in beautiful San Diego for the annual WMA conference. Buzz in the hallways indicated that the sessions were some of the strongest, most relevant, useful and enjoyable yet!

But what about the folks who weren’t there? How can they benefit from the conversations and sharing that took place? Fear not! We’ve got a lot of different ways to make sure everyone can get all caught up!

First off, there are the blog posts here at the WestMuse blog. And pretty soon the latest issue of the WestMuse newsletter will be published, focusing on the conference.

But there are other places to see what happened, too:

Back channel chatter on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23wma09
http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23wma2009

Photo sets on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lidja/sets/72157622655896204/ (courtesy of Lydia Johnson)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44049949@N08/sets/72157622678753818/ (courtesy of Lydia Johnson)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17123552@N00/sets/72157622699392078/ (courtesy of Linda Poe Waterfield)

Discussions on LinkedIn:

http://tinyurl.com/yk7uu9j
http://tinyurl.com/yjzqz6s

FaceBook Updates:

http://tinyurl.com/yjx9ku5

And hey, if you have photo sets you want to share or conference discussions that are happening someplace else online, please go ahead and post them in the comments so that more people can join in!

* Not only did we have museum people from the East Coast and the Mountain-Plains, we even had one special guest who came in all the way from Australia!

Strategies for Consultants

by Allyson Lazar

Some of the tools that may be used by a contract registrar: cotton gloves, camera, notebook, pencils, flashlight and tape measure.

These days with so many layoffs, there are a lot of people running around calling themselves freelancers, consultants or contract registrars. But is getting laid off enough of a reason to “hang your shingle” out there and go independent? How do you know if you’re really ready to cut it in the world of museum consulting and contract work?

The “Survival Strategies for Consultants” led by museum collections specialist Ted Greenberg answered just those questions and more! The panel consisted of Mo Shannon, the former registrar at the Museum of Contemporary Art in LA who has now been independent and caring for the collections of private collectors for 15 years; Alice Parman, an interpretive planner from Oregon who has worked in the past both in museums and exhibit development/design firms; and Gail Anderson, who went independent as a management and strategic planning consultant after 25 years in the field.

Though they each have markedly different backgrounds and areas of expertise, each one of these panelists is doing well right now, despite the downturn in the economy. Perhaps that’s because each one of them made the conscious decision to go independent, rather than being forced into that position, and each one has taken the time to be strategic in their approach to working on their own. They all seem to love the flexibility that freelancing affords, but they caution that you have to know yourself and if being your own boss is right for you: working, managing yourself, looking ahead to new clients and projects, tracking your time (often in 15-minute increments) and tracking receipts. You have to be aware of and prepared for the additional costs associated with freelancing: health care, insurance, a higher tax rate, office expenses and marketing.

Marketing is critical–both informally through word of mouth and building connections with vendors as well as museums, and formally, primarily through websites these days. It’s also important to very carefully and strategically determine your particular skill set and area of specialization and your geographic focus–are you willing to travel? if so, how far?

Naturally a good portion of the discussion was devoted to the ever-important topic of how to set billing rates and fees, and although this is critical, I found the overall discussion even more useful. What I took away from the session was that, done right, independent consulting can be a great way to serve the museum field in a way that is both personally and financially rewarding, but you really have to examine yourself first to determine if it is the right step and if so, you must be strategic about how you approach your business.

Boards and Directors

by Allyson Lazar

Handouts from the Museum Trustee Association

Bright and early last Wednesday morning I sat in on a session on Director/Board Relations at the annual WMA conference, moderated by Jim McCreight, President of the Museum Trustee Association. His panelists were Mo King, Immediate Past Chair of the Mingei International Museum in San Diego and Derrick Cartwright, formerly the Director of the San Diego Museum of Art and now the Director of the Seattle Art Museum.

As a relatively new member of the WMA board, I thought it would do me some good to listen to some pros talk about leadership, the role of the board, building a strong board and how to maintain healthy board/director relations–and I was right! I learned a lot in this session, so I thought I’d share some of the helpful nuggets of wisdom I gathered from the session.

Two-way trust, transparency and support are key to board/director relations. Mutual respect is necessary.

The board must:

• understand their fiscal responsibility
• preserve the mission
• set policy
• be committed to the mission, strategic planning and fundraising

The director must:

• communicate effectively with the board, and in a timely fashion, particularly if there are problems
• be able to deal with constructive criticism
• handle small problems quickly before they mushroom

“If the relationship between the Executive Director and the Chair fails, you’re sunk.” — audience member

“If they are getting the job done, you don’t have to like them.” — Jim on differing styles

Tips for a strong board:

• Strategically identify board prospects–and identify them early on.
• The board should evaluate itself according to its Board Contract.
• Commitment to the mission is crucial–fundraising alone is not enough.
• Well-run, well-organized board retreats are good for keeping a board energized.
• Have orientation meetings for new board members with the Executive Director, the Chair and the Immediate Past Chair (and possibly the Development Director).
• Make sure new board members know what is expected of them in terms of both money and time.
• Maintain communication!

What would you add to these lists? Comment below!