Tag Archive for: nema

coming up in Affiliateland in November 2015

The fall season is in full swing with great events at Affiliates!

Watch a free webcast of the day-long symposium on the Puerto Rican Diaspora at http://museo.ut.pr/centro-de-estudios/puerto-rico-aqui-y-alla/

Watch a free webcast of the day-long symposium on the Puerto Rican Diaspora at http://museo.ut.pr/centro-de-estudios/puerto-rico-aqui-y-alla/

PUERTO RICO
The Museo y Centro de Estudios Humanísticos at the Universidad del Turabo hosts Aquí y Allá: a multidisciplinary symposium exploring the Puerto Rican diaspora in collaboration with Smithsonian Affiliations and Smithsonian Latino Center, in Gurabo. Four Affiliates will host live viewings of the symposium’s free webcast, including Framingham State University in Framingham, MA; the African American Museum in Philadelphia, PA; the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh; and Orange County Regional History Center in Orlando, FL, 11.5.

MAINE
National Outreach Manager Jennifer Brundage attends the New England Museum Association conference, and leads a session with colleagues from the Berkshire Museum and the Lemelson-MIT Program in Portland, 11.4-6.

CALIFORNIA
The Museums of Sonoma County open SITES’ Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape the Nation exhibition in Santa Rosa, 11.8.

CONNECTICUT
Mystic Seaport kicks off its Stars of the Smithsonian lecture series with a talk by Andy Johnston, Geographer at the National Air and Space Museum, on navigation across the oceans, earth and space, in Mystic, 11.12.

OHIO
The Works: Ohio Center for History, Art and Technology offers the Learning Through Objects: Museums and Young Children workshop in collaboration with the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center in Newark, 11.14.

SOUTH CAROLINA
Affiliations Director Harold Closter will attend the official Affiliate announcement at the Coastal Discovery Museum on Hilton Head Island, 11.18.

NEW YORK

The John Clum watch fob which tells the story of the gold rush in Alaska, on loan from the National Postal Museum, will be on view at MoAF in November.

The John Clum watch fob which tells the story of the gold rush in Alaska, on loan from the National Postal Museum, will be on view at MoAF in November.

The Museum of American Finance opens the Worth its Weight: Gold from the Ground Up exhibition featuring 27 artifacts on loan from three Smithsonian museums, in New York City, 11.19.

 

musings from the new england museum association

SI Astrophysical Observatory's Black Holes exhibition, on view at the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center in Concord, NH

SI Astrophysical Observatory's Black Holes exhibition, on view at the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center in Concord, NH

One of the most interesting questions I heard asked at the New England Museum Association conference last week was, what’s the new non-profit normal?   There was a sense that both retrenching and rethinking are in order, but that steering museums through these turbulent times will produce changes that will last far beyond the economic crisis and our eventual recovery.

The new director of Affliate Plimoth Plantation (Plymouth, MA), offered one such road map.  It’s hyper-attentive visitor experience, and a zero tolerance for unsatisfactory comments.  One of the results of recent visitor surveys at Plimoth revealed that 93% of their visitors report a very satisfactory experience.  Pretty good right?!  Except for director Ellie Donovan, a missionary for high-quality visitor experience in every regard.  She recognizes that the other 7% represent 25,000 people who are not shopping in the store for things to remember a bad experience, and are not saying nice things to their friends.  In short, that 7% represent thousands of dollars of potentially lost revenue, that no museum or historical site can stand to lose.  A powerful argument.     

The keynote speaker at NEMA made a nuanced plea for new non-profit normal too, that is, how museums need to step up to their role as builders of social capital in a community.  Social capital is a metric, measured by community and state by such statistics as the number of active voters, volunteerism, crime rates, even TV-watching rates (a negative indicator).  Unsurprisingly, his research has shown that, the higher the social capital, the higher are other rates of happiness indicators – education achievement, lower incarceration rates, etc.  Lewis Feldstein, President of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, challenged all the museum professionals present to ask themselves how their organizations are building social capital.  Do new immigrants come to your museum to learn about the community’s history or cultural activity?  Do local civic groups call you to use your facilities for meetings?  Is your staff serving on community boards, active and visible members of civic life in your city?  All (and more) are important questions for establishing the relevancy of museums to the contexts of their communities.

But not all the discussions at the conference were that deep and soul-searching.  I was lucky to see Black Holes: Space Warps and Time Twists, an exhibition organized by the Smithsonian’s Astrophysical Observatory, at the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center in Concord, NH.  (Ok, how many knew that Christa McAuliffe was a high school social studies teacher from Concord, NH High School?  Or that the quote, “I touch the future, I teach,” was hers?!)  It was a wonderfully interactive exhibit with a variety of media stations that allow the visitor to weigh black holes and dive into them, among other activities.    And I met the young enthusiastic safari-clad staff of scvngr – a do-it-yourself interface template for creating location-based, high-tech, mobile games.  So very fun.

Overall, a very pleasant, thought-provoking week in New England.  How about you – what’s the chatter at your regional association or museum?

Coming up in Affiliateland

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SITES' exhibition on White House gardens, opening in Illinois.

What’s going on at Affiliates in November?

MARYLAND:  Staff of the B & O Railroad Museum in Baltimore receive training with educators from the Smithsonian’s Early Enrichment Center, 11.5.

The Reginald F. Lewis Museum sponsors a “Get on the Bus” tour from D.C. to Baltimore,  featuring SITES’ project director Marquette Folley,  11.7.

ILLINOIS:  The  Jeweled Objects of Desire exhibition featuring 43 objects from the gem and minerals collections of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History opens at the Lizzadro Museum of Lapidary Art in Elmhurst, 11.7.

The Dixon Historic Center opens SITES’ The White House Garden exhibition in Dixon, 11.14.

NEW HAMPSHIRE:  Outreach Manager Jennifer Brundage will be attending the New England Museum Association conference in Nashua, 11.11-14.