2021 – Page 21 – American Alliance of Museums

A Glimpse of the Post-pandemic Future

By American Alliance of Museums

Watch this plenary talk by Elizabeth Merritt from the #AAMvirtual 2020 Annual Meeting for the American Alliance o…
Investing for Values and Mission

By Elizabeth Merritt

Editor’s Note: This year AAM’s TrendsWatch leads with a call for museums to help close the racial gaps in wealth and power that divide the United States. As the report points out, one way museums can do this is through restorative …
AAM Announces Latest Accreditation Awards: 21 Museums Receive this High Honor

By American Alliance of Museums

For Immediate Release Arlington, VA – The American Alliance of Museums (AAM), the only organization representing the entire scope of the museum community, today announced 21 reaccreditation awards made at the February 2021 meeting of the …
Essential Evaluators: Answering COVID Questions

By Laureen Trainer and Andréa Giron Mathern

Essential Evaluators seeks to gather evaluators in a common space to dialogue, reflect, and support each other in a world upended by COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter protest movement. This is a time of uncertain and unknown expectations …
An “Empathy Bridge” Helps the Woodland Park Zoo Drive Social Change

By Laurie Stuart, Daniel Rother, Laurel Abbotts, & Mary Jackson

Any cultural institution can benefit from understanding and fostering meaningful, emotional experiences for our audiences, especially those whose missions emphasize individual, community, or societal change. For zoos and aquariums, this …
Using Local Data to More Fully Understand the Visitor Experience During COVID

By Kari Ross Nelson & Stephen Ashton, Ph.D.

At Thanksgiving Point Institute—a farm, garden, and museum complex in Lehi, Utah—we’ve been wondering how visitor agendas are changing during the current health crisis. Understanding visitor motivations informs our efforts to be inclusive …
Congress Passes $1.9 Trillion COVID-19 Relief Legislation

By American Alliance of Museums

Advocacy Alert – March 12, 2021 Congress Passes $1.9 Trillion COVID-19 Relief Legislation Yesterday, President Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan Act (H.R. 1319; Summaries and Resources here) which was recently passed by …
Obtaining Government Funding for Education Programs

By Mae Sevedge & Reggie Lynch

In this series of posts, EdCom’s Trends Committee is taking a deeper look at emerging phenomena identified in the 2020 edition of TrendsWatch from the Center for the Future of Museums. In this post, they dive into government funding, with …
How the Frazier History Museum Is “Bridging the Divide” in Its City

By Rachel Platt

The Frazier History Museum is located on Main Street in Downtown Louisville, Kentucky, at the corner of Ninth Street. What makes our address significant, historically significant, is that Ninth Street has long been known as the “Ninth …
Invite Your Visitors and Participants To Be Seen in a National Research Portrait — Especially if Your Museum Serves BIPOC or Rural Communities

By Elizabeth Merritt

Sometimes “anyone can participate” isn’t as inclusive as it seems. There can be all sorts of invisible barriers, including who even hears the invitation to begin with. Sometimes it takes an extra effort to make sure that …