Kudos Affiliates! for November 2017

Bravo Affiliates on these great accomplishments!

Funding

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) recently announced $1,998,484 in funding for 28 training and professional development projects for museums across the country as part of its Museums for America grant program, including the following Affiliate projects:

Abbe Museum (Bar Harbor, ME)-Award: $53,050.00

The Abbe Museum will invest in professional development and training for its staff, board, and volunteers to support its work with the Wabanaki Nations towards a decolonized approach to every aspect of its operations. An emerging concept in museum practice, decolonization is an ongoing process of sharing authority for the documentation and interpretation of Native culture.

John G. Shedd Aquarium (Chicago, IL)-Award: $246,981.00

The Shedd Aquarium will undertake a two-year project to build the capacity of museum staff to engage diverse communities through increased cultural competencies. Through a multi-departmental and integrated suite of professional development opportunities, the project will ensure that the institution’s commitment to diversity and inclusion is effective and sustainable.

Mid-America Science Museum (Hot Springs, AR)-Award: $21,939.00

Mid-America Science Museum will implement a professional development program for its education staff and those from member museums of the Arkansas Discovery Network. Museum staffers will participate in a series of three day-long workshops on robotics, app development, and microprocessors.

Perot Museum of Nature and Science (Dallas, TX)-Award: $24,819.00

In response to changing demographics in north Texas, the Perot Museum of Nature and Science will develop staff capacity to create a culturally competent, bilingual (English and Spanish) institution.

 

Through the agency’s largest competitive grant program, Museums for America, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) announced $19,189,929 in grants for museums across the nation including the following Affiliate projects:

Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, MI)-Award: $200,000.00

The Arab American National Museum will increase its educational outreach programming about Arabs, Arab Americans, and Islam to regions of southeastern Michigan. The museum will provide comprehensive educational resources and tools, underwrite fieldtrips to the museum, and offer off-site workshops to under-resourced school districts in the targeted regions of the state.

Buffalo Bill Historical Center (Cody, WY)-Award: $255,000.00

The Buffalo Bill Center of the West will work with advisory groups and an external exhibit design firm to renovate and reinstall the Cody Firearms Museum, a 22,500-square-foot gallery. The reinstallation will feature six thematic areas with educational interpretation and media interactives that put firearms into the larger context of history while still providing the technical information of interest to collectors.

USS Constitution Museum (Boston, MA)-Award: $326,032.00

The USS Constitution Museum will transform the interpretive endeavors of two separate entities through a strategic alliance with the U.S. Navy’s USS Constitution. The All Aboard project will integrate experiences to take place both on board the ship and in the museum for the first time to maximize learning.

Springfield Museum of Art (Springfield, OH)-Award: $24,729.00

The Springfield Museum of Art will increase public access, knowledge, and use of the 325 prints in its permanent collection by partnering with the Dayton Printmakers Cooperative. The Print Positives: Rediscovering and Using Our Print Collection project will include study sessions and research assistance from the printmakers to enable museum staff to develop an exhibition of prints from the permanent collection.

San Diego Museum of Man (San Diego, CA)-Award: $310,430.00

The San Diego Museum of Man will engage with the Kumeyaay Nation to build the museum’s capacity to engage the federally recognized tribe as a partner in decisions about collections, exhibitions, and programs.

North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences (Raleigh, NC)-Award: $139,681.00

The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences will address urgent conservation needs for three marine invertebrate collections acquired from the Charleston Museum, Duke University Marine Laboratory, and the University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences.

Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham, AL)-Award: $184,295.00

The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute will digitize interviews from its oral history collections to allow broader access to the public and encourage scholarship and new interpretations of the Civil Rights Movement.

Connecticut Historical Society (Hartford, CT)-Award: $24,467.00

The Connecticut Historical Society will undertake a film digitization project to catalog, digitize, and improve storage conditions for selected items from its motion picture film collection, which provides insights into the lives and culture of 20th -century Connecticut residents and communities.

 

Arconic Foundation awarded Putnam Museum (Davenport, IA) a $40,000 grant for the IMMERSE Program, a week long, immersive, in house learning experience for students.

Burton D. Morgan Foundation trustees approved a $172,000 grant to The National Inventors Hall of Fame (Newark, OH) to operate its Camp Invention programs in the summer and conduct a study on STEM education in co-curricular settings.

The Dubuque County Historical Society has received funding from the City of Dubuque’s Arts & Culture Special Projects program. Funding will support the creation of hand-painted murals that illustrate the stories of aquatic life featured in the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium’s (Dubuque, IA) Rivers to the Seas exhibits and the much-anticipated Conservation Lab.

Coming up in Affiliateland in November 2017

We’re thankful for all the activity in Affiliateland this month. Happy Thanksgiving Affiliates!

D.C.
Two Affiliates are loaning objects to The Sweat of their Face: Portraying American Workers exhibition at the Smithsonian. The Lowell National Historical Park has lent a wood engraving by Winslow Homer and the High Museum has lent a photograph by Peter Sekaer and an oil painting by Francis Hyman Criss. Opening at the National Portrait Gallery, 11.3.

CALIFORNIA
The San Diego History Center opens the Mail Call exhibition (SITES) which explores the history of America’s military postal system, in San Diego, 11.4.

MASSACHUSETTS
Richard Kurin, Distinguished Scholar and Ambassador-at-Large, will lecture on his book, Hope Diamond: The Legendary History of a Cursed Gem at the Springfield Museums, 11.5.

NATIONWIDE
Teens at five Affiliates continue to advise the Smithsonian through the Secretary’s Youth Advisory Council, meeting again via videoconference from Fort Worth, Corning, Cincinnati, Dearborn and Greenville, 11.8.

GEORGIA

From the Ocean Optimism initiative website, oceanoptimism.org

Dr. Nancy Knowlton, senior scientist emerita from the Smithsonian’s Tropical Research Institute in Panama, will give a Science on Tap lecture to discuss the Ocean Optimism Initiative, at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, 11.14.

ALABAMA
A new Smithsonian Spark!Lab, an immersive, interactive place for exploring invention, will open at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, 11.24.