Human Resources

Advancing Equity Through Arts and Culture

By Elizabeth Merritt

HI, Nicole here! Earlier this month, I had the honor of participating in a panel discussion held by Cool Culture, a New York City cultural organization that encourages arts education by providing free access to local arts institutions for …
Playing in the Museum Sandbox

By Elizabeth Merritt

Readers of CFM’s TrendsWatch reports and followers of this Blog will know of my fascination with the emerging business model of museums running co-working spaces. It’s such a genius use of museum resources (staff expertise, visitors, …
Museums and the Future of Work: A Call for Collaboration

By Elizabeth Merritt

Hi, Nicole here. In today’s short post, I’m sharing some exciting news—and making a call for your collaboration! This spring, CFM will be holding a national convening on museums and the future of work. The two-day event builds …
Monday Musing: unbiased wages

By Elizabeth Merritt

A few weeks ago I tweeted about a post by the estimable Vu Le in which he argued that “basing pay on salary history is a harmful, borderline-unethical practice that we need to abolish.” He points out that calibrating salary …
Museum People are the Best!

By Elizabeth Merritt

Dan and Marieke at the Renwick Galleryin Washington, DC One of my favorite museum podcasts—Museum People—just launched its second season with an episode profiling AAM’s own Laura Lott. In this series, produced by the New England …
Talking About Museums and Internships

By Nicole Ivy

Hi, Nicole here! Throughout the course of my work on museums and labor at CFM this past year, I have had the pleasure of talking with—and learning from—colleagues across the US in various stages of their careers. Time and again, I’ve heard …
Improving the Future of Hiring

By Elizabeth Merritt

Last week I blogged about the “unbiased hiring” process that we used to fill a recent CFM position here at AAM.Today I wanted to follow up with a few related thoughts sparked by conversations at the Labor 3.0 encounters that CFM …
Rethinking Hiring: Walking the Walk

By Elizabeth Merritt

I’m a fan of leading by doing. Which is to say, when I suggest to museums (as I do in every section of TrendsWatch), “you might want to…” I always ask myself, and the Alliance, if we might “want to” as well. Since one major focus of AAM’s …
Speaking with the Next Generation of Museum Workers

By Elizabeth Merritt

Did you create a museum in your room when you were a kid? Did you—like the Field Museum’s Bill Stanley—have a #butterflymoment when you realized working in a museum could be a real job? The more I wrestle with the challenge of building …
Some Reflections on Museums and Labor at the Annual Meeting

By Elizabeth Merritt

Hi, Nicole here! This year’s CFM demo in the MuseumExpo during the AAM 2016 Annual Meeting was jam-packed with tough thinking and rich engagement on the issues of museums and labor. During the course of the programming from May 26-28, we …