Diversity

Belonging: Co-creating welcoming and equitable museums

By Sandra Bonnici

“Can you describe a time you felt unwelcome or like you didn’t belong in a museum?” This question was posed during a recent conference call for the Facing Change Senior Diversity Fellows. As I listened to my distinguished colleagues …
2019 Award Winner for Excellence in Practice: David Rios

By David Rios

According to his nominator, David Rios, Director of Public Programs and Curator of Contemporary Art at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan (CMOM), “excels in building experiences and shaping content in ways that create engagement and …
With Their Subject Matter in the Crosshairs, What Should Museums Do?

By Kevin Jennings

My parents were part of the generation that fought and won World War II. As their children, it was common for us to ask them, “What did you do during the war?” We wanted to be reassured they had stood up and done the right thing when it …
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 …
Flies in the Buttermilk: Museums, Diversity, and the Will to Change

By Lonnie G. Bunch Ill

This essay originally appeared in the July/August 2000 issue of Museum News, a publication of the American Alliance of Museums. Lonnie G. Bunch III later became the founding director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American …
Financial Sustainability Is Everyone’s Responsibility

By Laura Lott

Prepared Remarks of Laura L. Lott President & CEO of the American Alliance of Museums Opening General Session of the 2019 Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo May 20, 2019 Good morning and welcome to the 2019 AAM Annual Meeting, the largest …
A Fellowship Helps One Emerging Professional Find Her Footing

By Asmaa Walton

Art has been a part of my life since very early on. When I was around four, my mother began working at the Detroit Institute of Arts, and I spent many hours after school and on weekends there with her hanging out in her office. Even at …
Hiring Tips to Create Value and Inclusion for all Disciplines in Museums

By Ayanna Reed

There are qualified and diverse candidates out there who may not be aware that museums are a sustainable career option for them—it’s our job as a field to recruit and retain this virtually untapped market. One important way to achieve this …
The Mission-Driven Café: When doing the wrong thing is the right thing to do

By Larry Bain

Ask most museum directors, restaurant consultants, and other knowledgeable folks and they will tell you: “Hire an outside food-service company to run your café.” Well, that makes perfect sense—that is what most museums choose to do. The …
A Place at the Table: Developing diversity and next-generation leaders

By Lynn Miller

In 2018, the Toledo Museum of Art (TMA) in Ohio named Asmaa Walton, a Detroit native with a master’s degree from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, its first KeyBank Museum Fellow. The announcement brought a four-year process of development, …