Scholarship Applications Due January 29

Reminder: The MIC scholarship applications to attend the 2010 Texas Association of Museums Annual Meeting are due January 29th.

Lecture Webcast: Towards a New Mainstream?

Check out this FREE Webinar!

"Towards a New Mainstream?"
Jan. 27 - 2 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. EST

http://futureofmuseums.org/events/lecture/rodriguez.cfm

A scintillating lecture by Gregory Rodriguez exploring demographic change in the Americas, cultural transformation and the future of museums.

In addition to the video presentation of the lecture (recorded before a live audience on Dec. 9th at the Embassy of Canada in Washington, D.C.) the webcast will include an overview of the demographic trends sweeping the nation in the coming decades; a live online question and answer session with Gregory; a panel discussion; and moderated chat rooms. It's like attending a whole conference without ever leaving your office!

Registration is open to all individuals. You will be asked to log in to the AAM website, and to create a user name and password if you don't already have one. If you need assistance with registration, contact us at futureofmuseums@aam-us.org.

A discussion guide and resource list for the lecture will be posted to this website soon.

Rodriguez is founder and executive director of Zócalo Public Square (a nonprofit lecture series and Web publication) and Irvine Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation. He has written on issues of national identity, social cohesion, assimilation, race relations, religion, immigration, ethnicity and demographics for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times, where he is an op-ed columnist. He is the author of Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds: Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race in America, which the Washington Post listed among the

In brief: Artifacts are sought for Chicano exhibit

El Paso Times Staff

Posted: 12/16/2009 12:00:00 AM MST
Artifacts are sought for Chicano exhibit EL PASO -- Museo Mayachen is looking for fliers, posters, banners, photographs, tickets and other artifacts for a 2010 exhibit of the Chicano Movement in El Paso. The exhibition, scheduled to open Feb. 3, will display personalities, events and issues associated with Chicanos in El Paso. Information: (915)533-9710, (915)532-6205.

Scholarships Available for the TAM Annual Meeting

Multicultural Initiatives Scholarship (MIC):
TAM is offering a limited number of full scholarships for the Annual Meeting to be awarded to minority professionals currently working in Texas museums. Applicants must be early-career and/or new to the Texas museum profession. These scholarships will include meeting registration, one workshop, one luncheon, one breakfast, and an evening event. The scholarship recipient(s) will be responsible for his or her travel, lodging, and incidental costs. Following the meeting the recipient(s) will be asked to write an article for the MIC blog, offering observations on the state of diversity in the museum profession and/or their observations on diversity based on the annual meeting. To apply, send a resume, references, and a one-page letter stating reasons for applying for the scholarship to admin@texasmuseums.org. Deadline for applying is January 29, 2010.


NEW!!!! Multicultural Initiatives Committee GLBT scholarship:
The MIC is offering a $250 scholarship for a GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transsexual) museum professional to attend the 2010 TAM Annual Meeting. Applicants must be early-career and/or have never attended a TAM annual meeting before. Following the meeting, the recipient will be asked to write an article for the MIC blog offering observations about state of GLBT issues within the museum community and/or field. To apply, send a resume, references, and a one page letter stating reasons for applying to Ivette Ray, MIC Chair, to Ivette.ray@fortworthgov.org. Deadline for applying is January 29, 2010.
**Funds for this scholarship have been generously provided by Wallace Saage.

Diversity Sessions Featured at 2010 TAM Annual Meeting

One of the roles of the MIC is to ensure that adequate attention and time are give to diversity issues at the Texas Association of Museums Annual Meetings. This summer, the MIC submitted four session proposals for the 2010 meeting. I am pleased to announce that two of them have been accepted in their entirety. These are titled "Opening Doors to Inclusiveness" and "Out of the Closet: A Community History Comes to Light." Unfortunately, the other two sessions did not make the cut. Considering that the program committee has the tough task of narrowing the proposals submitted to about half, we are fortunate that half of our submitted sessions were selected.

If you are planning to attend the 2010 TAM Annual Meeting in College Station, be on the lookout for these and other great sessions!

As more details are released about the annual meeting and the sessions, we will update the blog.

Museums take on immigration debate with exhibits

This very intersting article about the role of museums in the immigration debate is from the Chicago Tribune
By SOPHIA TAREEN Associated Press Writer

CHICAGO - With little progress on Immigration reform among lawmakers, the nationwide debate has entered a new space: museums. A network of U.S. museums launched a program Wednesday in Chicago that aims to grapple with tough questions on Immigration, including who should have access to health care, how borders should be controlled, and issues of citizenship and identity. The idea is to get leaders and activists talking to each other in locations connected to history to figure out how to achieve reform, said Liz Sevcenko, director of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience. "Part of the reason that there hasn't been a reform bill is that everybody is afraid of opening the debate," she said. "They're afraid of igniting their constituents, so nothing gets done." But the program, which involves 13 museums, isn't dedicated to crafting specific policies or proposals. Organizers say they'll let the public figure out how they want to talk about issues and museums will tailor events to their local communities in the coming months. The museums chose Immigration as a focus because it intersects with other topics and historically has been an issue the U.S. struggles with, Sevcenko said. For instance, the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Mich., which has one of the nation's largest Arab populations, will have classes for college students and an exhibit called "Connecting Communities" in which recent immigrants tell their stories. The Wing Luke Asian Museum in Seattle has an exhibit called "Deporting Cambodians: How Immigration Policy Shapes Our Communities." The discussions and displays will not be focused solely on Immigration. For instance, in Chicago, a city with a rich labor history, events at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum will involve labor leaders. "It's impossible to talk about Immigration without talking about labor or health care," said Lisa Lee, director of the museum dedicated to the writer, social worker and first American woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize. "Before legislation, citizens have to be informed." Organizers of the program, called "Face to Face: Immigration Then and Now," say it's also important to let the public decide how they want to talk about the issue. On Wednesday in Chicago, about a dozen activists toured the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum and then talked about how to make social change, drawing largely on personal experience. Among those invited were hip hop advocates, gay activists and Bill Ayers, a University of Illinois at Chicago professor and 1960s radical whose past association with President Barack Obama created headlines during the campaign. "Immigration is one of these central issues in American life," Ayers told The Associated Press. "I think the way it is being framed is profoundly dishonest." While there is no reform bill currently before legislators, Obama has vowed to take up the issue this year. But many Immigration reform activists have been skeptical because details have been scant and other pressing issue, like health care, have been polarizing. Organizers of the museum program say when it comes to Immigration, they want to circumvent legislators' town hall meetings on health care, which often erupted into shouting matches. "We hope that we'll be able to prevent what happened with health care to happening with Immigration so people can grapple with the tough questions we're facing," Sevcenko said. "Reform will happen because people are able to look at this issue in a much more informed and measured way." Other participating museums include the Field Museum and Cambodian American Heritage Museum, both in Chicago; the Levine Museum of the New South in Charlotte, N.C., the Lower East Side Tenement Museum and Ellis Island in New York; the Japanese American Museum in Los Angeles; the New Americans Museum in San Diego; Angel Island in San Francisco; the Tsongas Industrial History Center in Lowell, Mass.; and the University of Texas El Paso's Paso al Norte Immigration History Museum in El Paso, Texas. The museums are part of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, a network which has more than 200 members worldwide. ------ On the Web: International Coalition of Sites of Conscience: www.sitesofconscience.org/en Jane Addams Hull-House Museum: www.uic.edu/jaddams/hull

Museums, Diversity, and (Insert Culture Here): Appropriating Cultural Sensitivity Policy of the National Museum of the American Indian

This essay, by Christina Hardman, is the last in a series of essays written by the Texas Associaton of Museums scholarship recipients:

A well-designed collections management policy is important to the administration of a museum as a public trust on many different levels. Such policy creates a clear standard toward which the museum’s administration can look when dealing with everything from defining which collections are pertinent to the museum’s mission, to how to deal with acquisition, disposal, care, and display. However, a new appreciation for the meaning and significance of cultural patrimony has created a need for concern beyond the more traditional requirements of a collections management policy. Initially, these new concerns raised many questions for museums with collections of Native American origin. What responsibilities does the museum have toward the individual or group for which the object is an exceptional cultural resource? What additional responsibilities does the collections staff have toward the care and management of an object with respect to its cultural context? The National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) has attempted to address such issues with regard to access and care of the collections, and the practice of cultural sensitivity policy within the museum as a whole. Yet such policy can also be viewed as a standard by which any museum can encourage diversity through cultural sensitivity as it relates to those represented within the museum, as well as the surrounding community.
That which differentiates NMAI’s policy is as much a reflection of the issues surrounding the state of Native American cultural patrimony as it is of the culturally sensitive items in the collection itself. Initially, one must consider the incidents leading up to the need for and creation of such policy, first and foremost being the systematic removal and collection of said objects from their cultural context. Many objects hold both a spiritual and mnemonic significance in terms of serving as both something to be revered and a way in which to remember significant events. The removal of the vast majority of those objects to private collections and museums has not only created historical interruption and cultural gaps in the conveyance of tradition, but it has forced indigenous cultures to look toward museums as the last bastion of their own cultural resources.[1] To a greater or lesser extent, depending upon geographical location, the same can be said of cultural resources collected as a result of both Jewish and African Diasporas, not to mention scores of cultural, religious, and minority groups. Although objects themselves may have different usage and meaning, historical and cultural interruption can affect any culture group in much the same way.
Consideration of the objects themselves in their original cultural context must also be addressed. According to W. Richard West, Jr., founding director of NMAI, the “object, if anything, was a secondary consideration to the primacy of the ceremonial ritual or process that led to its creation.”[2] Therefore, any object taken out of its cultural context and categorized in Anglo-American and Western European terms must be once again examined with regard to indigenous meaning. By its own mission, NMAI attempts to do exactly that by encouraging the “understanding of Native cultures…through partnership with Native people and others.” (The mission statement in its entirety can be found here: http://www.nmai.si.edu/subpage.cfm?subpage=about) Once a museum has recognized the need for diversity within its exhibitions, programming, and collections, the same considerations may be made for those specific groups within the surrounding community or those represented within the museum. Within this framework, almost any community or culture may be substituted for the term “Native” and the same concepts applied in terms of consultation, collaboration, and cooperation with the specified group.
As is also evident by their mission statement, the foundation of thought behind NMAI as an institution is based on the idea that while it is a “museum” with objects and is a producer of exhibitions, collaboration must occur between the museum and Native peoples. This collaboration requires the incorporation of methods that integrate Native understandings of history and culture.[3] This includes consideration for Native religious and cultural beliefs with restrictions on access to culturally sensitive objects.[4] Native traditional care is based on the object’s spiritual meaning and its use within the community, rather than the object itself. As a middle ground, standard museum and Native practices regarding care integrate and change the relationship between the two. [5] In this same manner, collaboration can and must be a priority for museums at large. In much the same way that Native people have felt alienated from their own culture as it has been represented by museums in the past (and in some cases continues to be so, even today), many other groups, whether based on ethnicity, culture, or religious belief, are removed from the process of interpreting their own past. It is not enough to rely on history books for second-hand interpretation by an individual many times removed from the group or individual represented. It is the responsibility of the museum to reach out to the community at large and involve various groups in the interpretation of their own history and culture.
Many larger institutions with significant collections of Native American objects, such as the Denver Art Museum and the Arizona State Museum have had such policy in place for years (some even before the creations of NAGPRA, as in the case of the Peabody Museum at Harvard University). While such policies were originally created to address the challenges faced by Native American people and their representation and historic interpretation in museums, they may also be applied in a broader scope to address such issues related to many different culture groups. Although the policy is no longer completely unique to NMAI in its recognition of the cultures that created the objects and their vested interest in the care and use of the collections, it has been both accepted and rejected by the professional museum community at large and has fueled a public debate that continues even now. The future creation of such policy in the larger professional museum community, and its acceptance by those who view museums from the perspective of public trustee, must develop out of knowledge of the various cultural groups, their beliefs, and an understanding of the need for cultural sensitivity in museums.


[1] Berlo, Janet Catherine, Ruth B. Phillips and Carol Duncan. “The Problematics of Collecting and Display, Part 1.” The Art Bulletin, Vol. 77, No. 1. (March 1995), pp. 9.
[2] West, W. Richard Jr., “The National Museum of the American Indian: Steward of the Sacred.” Stewards of the Sacred. Eds. Lawrence E. Sullivan and Alison Edwards, eds. Washington, D.C.; The American Association of Museums: 2004, pp. 8.
[3] Cobb, Amanda J. “The National Museum of the American Indian as Cultural Sovereignty.” American Quarterly, Vol. 57, No. 2. (June 2005), pp. 493
[4] National Museum of the American Indian. Collections Management Policy. Smithsonian Institution, revised 28 April 1995, Item IV, Section E, Subsection 1, Paragraph (d).
[5] Cobb, pp. 493.