As we look toward 2022 and beyond, many museums are working to implement their new or existing missions, values, and initiatives that embrace and foreground diversity and inclusion.

As we exit 2021, I’m reflecting back on where I began the year, when I noted that “in 2020, the museum field as a whole showed itself to be out of step with society. . . [and] irrelevant.” At that time, I had begun having regular conversations with Emlyn Koster, a thought leader with three decades of experience as a nature and science museum CEO.

In her new Centering the Museum anthology, Elaine Gurian recalls our joint 2003 article that began: “Consider a world in which every museum, as either an extension of its mission or as its raison d’être, is geared to respond to contemporary events and issues” Imagining the future of museums has never been a more pressing need.

Using data collected from museum educators, Stephanie and Amanda document and contextualize what they consider incongruous, detrimental impacts on museum education due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ebony Bailey and Kerry Sautner explore how museums sought to address the digital divide made deeper by the pandemic, and how ongoing commitment to access, equity, and partnerships allowed educators to shift in new ways to support their regular audiences.

This post will help you determine—if indeed you are conducting human subjects research—whether it is exempt from IRB review.

Gen Z is values-driven and cultural institutions will have to put their values at the forefront in order to connect with and engage directly with this generation.

Emlyn recalls how Liberty Science Center, located across the lower Hudson from Manhattan and where he was President & CEO from 1996-2011, assisted the next-of-kin and surrounding community in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on and after September 11, 2001.

This third post defines criteria for human subjects research by breaking down the term “human subjects research.”

As cultural institutions pivot towards serving this generation of visitors, it seems like a particularly salient time to query how this change in demographics might affect strategy, planning, and outreach for visitor engagement.

In my first post in this IRB 101 series, I described what IRBs are and why they exist. IRBs exist to protect research participants. In this second post, I focus on risks to research participants.

A discussion between SLAM’s Chief Diversity Officer and Fellowship Director, Renée Brummell Franklin, and Kera Collective Founder Stephanie Downey.

My hope in leading the IRB 101 workshop and writing these posts is to help others overcome their nervousness about IRBs. Let’s start with a shared, foundational understanding of IRB.

Summer is here, and with it, a new guest blogger series! Today we are excited to share a new post by our friend Sadiya Akasha of Sitara Systems. Sadiya is a researcher, product designer, and expert on Gen Z (people born between 1995 and 2010). In this summer series, Sadiyawill make the case for how and why engaging Gen Z is critical and share research-based insights that cultural institutions should noteif they want to survive and thrive.

In early April I returned to work after a three month furlough. While being furloughed was not welcome news in an already challenging year for the field of museum education, this period away from my job as an art museum educator gave me ample time to think deeply and reflectively, something that feels in short supply when carrying out my regular duties and schedule.

Seven months ago, RK&A committed to anti-racist practice. To hold ourselves accountable, we write these updates to publicly document the work we have been doing and work still to do.

Spurred by the art-dominated sections on Museums in The New York Times, Emlyn reflects on this sector’s pressing need for a balanced profile between people/society and non-human life/nature.

Having drafted new labels, we want to ensure our approach is actually meaningful to our audiences at the Nelson-Atkins before putting them on the walls. We’re currently in the process of evaluating our new labels to better understand their impact on visitors.

In our workshops with curatorial colleagues (which we wrote about in the last post), we continually heard certain ideas rise to the surface about shared principles for interpretive text at the Nelson-Atkins.

In my last post, I wrote about harm reduction as a philosophy and how it might be applied to rethinking museum labels. In this post, I’ll explain just how we started these conversations at the Nelson-Atkins and put our ideas in action.