2019 – Page 13 – American Alliance of Museums

Museopunks Episode 37: Experience doesn’t pay the rent

By Suse Anderson

Unpaid internships are commonplace in the museum world, supported by a culture that suggests “experience” and the chance to get “a foot in the door” are worth the sacrifice of time and lost earnings. This practice necessarily limits the …
Every Museum Has a Story to Tell: Invite Congress to Visit Your Museum

By Ember Farber

Who: Museums and elected officials around the country! What: Annual Invite Congress to Visit Your Museum week. When: August 12-16, or whenever your elected officials and staff can make it. Where: Your museum! Why: So elected officials can …
Get about It: Change and Resistance

By Linda Norris

I’d never visited New Orleans before, and my brief but fascinating experience served as a metaphor for this year’s AAM Annual Meeting experience. New Orleans is a city of layers, with old finishes poking through, new ideas still pushing …
Unlocking the Neuroscience of Visitor Experience

By Tedi Asher, PhD

The act of understanding is fundamental to the museum experience. In visiting a museum, we come to understand the objects placed before us, along with the stories of their human pasts. So too is understanding a key to creating these …
Building a Future of Social Justice

By Ann Burroughs

In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, I came across a picture (above) of a futurist installation by LA street artist Plastic Jesus. This bit of immersive fiction warned of a future in which America might repeat one of the most …
Creating Vibrant Programs for Older Adults

By Delano Wood

It is a particular pleasure to hear from kindred spirits in creative aging who have been keeping up with our Ad Summa blogs. One such person is the indefatigable Delano Wood from DOROT in New York City. When he contacted me about his …
#InviteCongress: Recess Underway, Make the Case for Museums

By American Alliance of Museums

Advocacy Alert – August 2, 2019 Recess Underway – Invite Congress and Make the Case for OMS! The coming weeks and months are a critical time in the process to help secure the proposed increases for the federal agencies that …
Confronting a Painful History: How a museum partnered with its Native community to educate the public about an offensive place name

By Michele Graves

The Black Rock Historical Society (BRHS) is a volunteer organization on the west side of Buffalo, NY, formed in 2013 around the two-hundredth anniversary of the War of 1812 and chartered with the New York State Education Department in …
Welcoming the Next Generation of Board Leadership

By Christina Carr

AAM’s Facing Change initiative has put the spotlight on museum board diversity, but not everyone thinks of bringing younger people onto the board when the topic comes up. Age diversity, though, can contribute to financial sustainability …
We, the Aged, Are an Integral Part of the Community

By Ken Gorbey

In April, while on a visit to New Zealand, I convened seven highly-respected Kiwi colleagues in Wellington to discuss creative aging. I asked two questions of the participants: How might our museums be more sensitive and responsive to the …