Equity

How Philadelphia Cultural Institutions Embraced Collaboration to Address Opportunity Gaps

By Barbara Wong

If there is a positive outcome of the pandemic’s impact on cultural institutions, it may be the willingness to ideate and take different approaches to our work to ensure that no one is excluded—particularly low-income communities, where …
What Does a Truly Equitable Recruiting Process Look Like?

By Katherine McNamee

A few years ago, AAM began a journey to re-evaluate our recruitment process and do more to encourage a diverse applicant pool for our job openings. As a result, we overhauled our expectations around job qualifications, working to ensure …
Same Storm, Different Boats

By Elizabeth Merritt

Sometimes, in the wake of disruptive events. the world acts like a rubber band, snapping back to its original shape. Other times, disruptions have a lasting impact—resetting our boundaries, reshaping our practice. It will take several …
Rethinking Our Human Resources Practices to Build a More Equitable Museum

By Micah D. Parzen, Ph.D., J.D.

Less than three weeks after COVID forced museums around the globe to close their doors last year, an article by Arundhati Roy in The Financial Times titled “The Pandemic is a Portal” stopped me in my tracks. In the midst of an …
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 …
New TrendsWatch! Navigating a Disrupted Future

By Elizabeth Merritt

In a normal year, TrendsWatch explores the impact emerging forces of change may have on museums in the next decade or longer. Some, such as demographic shifts, affect all museums in the present. Others, such as the rise of blockchain …
My Primary School is in a Museum—US Pandemic Edition

By Elizabeth Merritt

Can you imagine being a school-age kid during this pandemic? Whether they are glued to a screen trying to learn via Zoom, attending class masked and distanced, or being home-schooled, this experience will shape our youngest generation for …
“Decolonizing is Literally Unsettling”: Repatriation of Nonprofit Land and Assets

By Elizabeth Merritt

On July 16, 2020, the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation (NACF) and the Yale Union (YU) announced that YU would transfer its land and building in Portland, Oregon, to NACF. The historic building will become the headquarters of the NACF …
The Hiring Practice That Stymies Equity in the Museum Workforce

By Makeba Clay

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. Companies that have been commended on their approach to …
How the Cincinnati Museum Center Reinvented Itself after Racial Justice Protests in 2001

By John E. Fleming, Ph.D.

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 Museum Center. In 2001, just after I joined the CMC as …