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Why Is Age Not Part of Diversity and Inclusion?

Diversity and Inclusion (DI) is one of the primary initiatives in the corporate world and continues to gain traction. Look at the managerial staff of any major company and you will see …

The Hiring Practice That Stymies Equity in the Museum Workforce

The authenticity of an organization’s actions to advance diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion (DEAI) is judged by two key factors: their consistency and comprehensiveness. …

How the Cincinnati Museum Center Reinvented Itself after Racial Justice Protests in 2001

Watching people of all ages, races, religions, and nationalities stand up for equality in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, my thoughts have drifted back to my time at the Cincinnati …

Black History in Our Own Backyard: Building Community in a COVID World

Lately, at the Neill-Cochran House Museum we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what community means, and the best way we can define it for our institution. This question has become even …

Essential Evaluators: A Brave New Dance

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. …

Racism, Unrest, and the Role of the Museum Field

On June 3, attendees of the AAM Virtual Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo came together to hear from Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole, Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III, and Lori Fogarty on the museum …

International Museum Day 2020 Goes Digital and Spotlights “Museums for Equality: Diversity and Inclusion”

From celebrating tribal traditions in Kenya to reconnecting with immigrant roots in Taiwan, tens of thousands of museums all over the world held International Museum Day activities in 2019. …

Quantifying a Commitment to Representation

I realized last summer that after twenty years in the museum field, I felt deeply frustrated. When I enrolled in my first museum studies classes in the late 1990s, there were audible and …

What Can Museums Learn from the “American Dirt” Controversy?

As an avid reader of Chicanx/Latinx literature, I’ve been closely following the national conversation about the recently released novel American Dirt by author Jeanine Cummins. The …

Soundtrack for an Equitable Conference

Cradled in soulful New Orleans, the 2019 American Alliance of Museums Annual Meeting offered a variety of new sights and sounds in one of the most culturally diverse cities in the United …

The Transformative Power of Inclusive Storytelling in Museums

My mentor Dr. Johnnetta Cole, the former director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art (NMAfA), often says, “It’s easy to live without art, but it’s hard to live well.” For me, …

What Kind of Ancestor Will You Be?

As Facing Change Senior Diversity Fellows, I and my associate fellows have been tasked with supporting museums as they address the lack of racial diversity in the governances of their …
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