Tag Archive for: smithsonian institution

Kudos Affiliates! July 2018

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Congratulations to these Affiliates on their recent accomplishments! Do you have a kudos to share? Please send potential kudos to Aaron Glavas, GlavasC@si.edu.

Funding

In pursuit of its commitment to advance the creative capacity of people and communities across the nation, the National Endowment for the Arts  (NEA) announced its second round of funding for Art Works, the NEA’s principal grants program, for fiscal year 2018. The funding includes the following Affiliate initiatives:

The Connecticut Historical Society (Hartford, CT)  will receive $30,000 to support the Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program (CCHAP) and related activities in documenting folklife. The Center will also receive $25,000 to support the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship program.

The Robert W. Woodruff Arts Center, Inc., on behalf of High Museum of Art, (Atlanta, GA) will receive $65,000 to support the exhibition and an accompanying catalog, Putting Something Over Something Else: Romare Bearden’s Profile Series.

The Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, MI), as part of  the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS) will receive $20,000 to support artist residencies and associated community engagement activities at the Museum.

National Jazz Museum in Harlem (New York, NY) will receive $20,000 to support the exhibit From Ragtime to Harlem Stride: James P. Johnson and the Emergence of Recording Technology.

Flushing Council on Culture and the Arts, Inc. (Queens, NY) will receive $60,000 to support a series of global music, dance, theater, and multidisciplinary performances held at Flushing Town Hall.

Heritage Farm Foundation, on behalf of Heritage Farm Museum & Village (Huntington, WV), will receive $75,000 to support a cultural district master plan in Huntington.

Springfield Museums (Springfield, MA)  has received a $200,000 grant from Massachusetts Cultural Council to help implement upgrades to the Springfield Science Museum’s bathrooms, lighting and carpeting.

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker with the Cat in the Hat. The Governor was on a visit to announce the $200,000 grant.

NASA’s Teams Engaging Affiliated Museums and Informal Institutions (TEAM II) announced that the Cosmosphere (Hutchinson, KS) was one of three projects selected from 43 submissions to receive funding. The funded project, Apollo Redux, will incorporate historic mission control consoles from Johnson Space Center with traveling interactive educational exhibits and curriculum. The $650,000 grant will cover the cost of refurbishing the consoles, creating the educational components, and designing the exhibits.

Inasmuch Foundation has announced the distribution of $4.154 million in grants to 47 organizations serving Oklahoma communities including $250,000 to the Stafford Air and Space Museum (Weatherford, OK) for the capital campaign for museum expansion.

The National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium (Dubuque, IA) has received a $20,000 grant from The Dubuque Racing Association for a new educational outreach vehicle to take informational learning to the community outside the organization. In particular, it will allow families, schools and the general public to engage with sea life from the Mississippi River Delta and Gulf of Mexico.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke announced more than $256 million in approved funding to rebuild critical national park infrastructure.  Lowell National Historical Park (Lowell, MA) received $4,177,000 for the upgrade and replacement of windows at the Boott Mill Museum.

Leadership

Longtime Buffalo Bill Center of the West (Cody, WY) Chief Executive Officer Bruce Eldredge announced his retirement. The museum’s board of trustees is conducting a nationwide search to choose a replacement. Eldredge will remain in his position until a new director has been chosen. He plans to relocate to the Seattle area to spend more time with family members there.

Timothy P. McGrane is leaving his position as Executive Director of the Blackhawk Museum (Danville, CA). McGrane has accepted a new position as CEO of SCRAMP (Sports Car Racing Association of the Monterey Peninsula) and WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in Monterey, California.

Smithsonian Announces Director for Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and Smithsonian Affiliations

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Myriam Springuel

Views from the Destination Moon press event that was held in the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA, on February 22, 2017. Event was held to announce the national tour of the Apollo 11 Command Module exhibit. Myriam Springuel, Director, SITES. Photo by Dane Penland. [Apollo DestinationMoon-2-22-2017-0223] [NASM2017-00421]

Today we are pleased to announce an important step in strengthening our content and peer-outreach capabilities. As of June 7, we have aligned the work of two organizations into one management structure called the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and Smithsonian Affiliations. This unit will be overseen by Myriam Springuel. As many of you know, Myriam has served as the Director of Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) since 2015 and as the interim director of Affiliations since June 2017.

Smithsonian Affiliations has grown into a globally recognized program that establishes and maintains the Smithsonian’s long-term partnerships with museums, educational organizations, and cultural institutions—there are now more than 200 affiliated organizations in 46 states, Puerto Rico, and Panama. For more than 65 years, SITES has shared Smithsonian exhibitions and educational resources with people and places all across the country. More than 500 communities in all 50 states host SITES shows in formats ranging from large-scale exhibits with iconic Smithsonian objects, to exhibitions for mid-size museums and cultural centers, and from small exhibitions for rural America, to poster exhibitions tailored to school classrooms. Putting these two critical entities together under one leader is an important step in improving capabilities related to several goals in the Institution’s new Strategic Plan, including understanding and reaching new audiences, using partnerships more effectively, and catalyzing new conversations around complex challenges across the nation.

Myriam brings 30 years of experience in museum planning, management, exhibitions, education, and staff training. Before returning to the Smithsonian in 2014, Myriam worked as a consultant with museums across the country. She was Director of Education and later Associate Director for Programs at SITES from 1986 to 1994. Earlier in her career, she curated fine arts exhibitions and developed education programs at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. Myriam holds a master’s degree in art history from the University of Maryland.

We encourage you to engage with Myriam as we consider how to take our work across the country and benefit from our relationships with other museum leaders in the Affiliate community.

Sincerely,

John Davis
Provost and Under Secretary for Museums, Education, and Research

Patty Bartlett
Associate Provost for Education and Access and Senior Advisor to the Secretary

If you have questions, please contact Myriam Springuel, Director, Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and Smithsonian Affiliations at SpringuelM@SI.edu

Part 1: Using Collections to Think About Immigration with the Smithsonian Learning Lab

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In 2017-2018 a collaboration among Smithsonian Affiliations, the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, and the Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access brought the Teacher Creativity Studios: Fostering Global Competence in the Classroom project to 3 Affiliate communities. The nationwide professional development project for educators is designed to develop new instructional materials and content highlighting Asian Pacific American experiences within K-12 humanities subject areas.

Teacher creating Learning Lab collection

Learning Lab workshop at the Tsongas Industrial History Center. Photo by Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access

Smithsonian Affiliates worked with local teachers to create multimedia lessons on the Smithsonian’s Learning Lab portal that integrated resources from the Smithsonian and other participating museums into teaching materials and lesson plans. The goal was to increase digital access to museum collections and inspire students to investigate the world around them using objects, documents, videos and more, all available for free online.

A teacher in Lowell, MA, did just that. Laura Lamarre Anderson, Grade 4 Teacher at STEM Academy at the Rogers School, participated in a workshop at the Tsongas Industrial History Center at the Lowell National Historical Park, a Smithsonian Affiliate, to explore the question of “Who Belongs?” with her students. Below is an excerpt from a blog she wrote for the Smithsonian Learning Lab. You can read the whole blog here.

In a city like Lowell, rich with a constant flow of immigrants moving in from all over the world, the question of “who belongs” comes up frequently. After facing discrimination themselves, some second- and third-generation Irish immigrants railed against the newcomers who came after. And the cycle continues with each new group of immigrants facing challenges to their rights to be here. Several students in my classroom have come up against challenges to their right to be in Massachusetts, their right to be called American, because of where they or their parents were born. With this in mind, I tried to choose images that reflect the challenges of immigration, that would help generate conversations about how people were welcomed at different points in our history, and that help us to begin thinking about what it means to be an American.

Teacher Creativity Studios workshops are funded by the Asian Pacific American Initiatives Pool at the Smithsonian.

If you are interested in learning more about the Smithsonian Learning Lab and how it could help your museum support teachers and students in your community, contact your National Outreach Manager.

¡Escuchame! 5 Questions With Dr. Kathleen Franz

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The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History is working on a new initiative, Escuchame: The History of Spanish Language Broadcasting in the U.S.  The museum has rich collections related to television, but few that tell the story of Spanish-language broadcasting in the U.S. This initiative will document stories from early Telemundo and Univision stations as well as other public and independent stations. Documenting these stories will help show the influence these stations have had on the national narrative and the way the history of American television is written.

Portrait of Dr. Kathleen Franz

Dr. Kathleen Franz, Chair of Work & Industry and Curator of Business History at the National Museum of American History.

To understand more, and how our Affiliate network may participate, I asked five questions of Dr. Kathleen Franz, Chair of Work & Industry and Curator of Business History at the National Museum of American History.

Tell us a little about yourself and how you came to be interested in your area of expertise?
In graduate school, I studied with one of the leading historians of advertising history in the U.S. and really became enthusiastic about the history of television and advertising as business history but also as popular culture. My work sits at the intersections of those two things.

Your current project centers on capturing the history of Spanish-language television in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. What sparked that idea and why is it important to capture this story?
I grew up in San Antonio, Texas, and saw first-hand the long history and power of Spanish-language broadcasting in the U.S. through the pioneering station of KWEX whose roots go back to the 1950s. However, general and popular histories of television often leave out the history of Spanish-language TV in the golden era of the 1950s and 1960s. So, building an archive that housed, preserved, and made available the stories of women and men who created stations and the networks is really important, because the earliest Spanish-language broadcasting goes back to the era of radio in the 1930s, and the earliest television stations are there in the golden era with the first successful network, Spanish International Network (SIN), created in 1961.

A common thread to this huge collection of materials—time-worn press credentials, painted tennis shoes, photographs, mic flags, scripts—is that they represent decades of Spanish-language broadcasting from the network Telemundo. (NMAH)

What have you enjoyed most about this initiative? What has been an unexpected discovery, if any?
First, I have two wonderful collaborators at the museum, Dr. Mireya Loza, curator, Department of Work and Industry, and Melinda Machado, director, Office of Communications and Marketing, who have helped make contact with stations around the country and we’ve done the oral history and object collecting as a team. I’ve learned so much from working with them and meeting the various people who run the stations and put the programming on every day. We also had tremendous support from a private donor — of the Nicolas family in San Antonio who founded KCOR in 1954— the Smithsonian’s Latino Center, Telemundo, and Univision. I can’t name everyone here but I am so grateful for the support of the networks! This has been a serious collaboration to capture and preserve this history. One of the best, and unexpected discoveries, was a painting of the Televisa studios in Mexico City commissioned by Emilio Nicolas in the early 1960s. It’s so unusual to have an artist’s rendition of a TV set and the image captures the look and feel of that exciting era in television. Mr. Nicolas traveled regularly to Mexico City to produce programming at the studio and bring it back to the US Spanish-speaking market for SIN.

What would you like to share with Affiliates? And what would you like Affiliates to share with you?
I’m always delighted to talk to local audiences and I would be happy to talk about the collecting and sharing resources with Affiliates. In turn, it would help us to work with Affiliates to do collecting or memory days at their sites, especially ones who are in cities with long-running Spanish-language stations. We really want to capture what audiences thought and how they viewed and used the stations in their own lives.

What is your next project and what are you looking forward to with it?
Dr. Loza and I would like to publish an edited volume of the oral histories and we’ll be working on that over the next 18 months or so. I’m also currently working on the National Museum of American History’s major women’s history initiative exhibition for the centennial of Women’s suffrage. That exhibition will open at the museum in 2020 and then travel the country starting in 2021.

Dr. Franz is open to the possibility of visiting our Affiliate network in the fall to share more about this initiative. Do you have connections to Spanish-language television history? Contact your National Outreach Manager for more information about bringing Dr. Franz to your neighborhood.

Telemundo Microphone cubes

This series of microphone cubes used over the years by Telemundo 51 WSCV-TV in Florida was donated by Marilys Llanos, senior political reporter at at the station. (Photo by Laura Duff, Smithsonian Institution)

Kudos Affiliates! June 2018

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Congratulations to these Affiliates on their recent accomplishments! Do you have a kudos to share? Please send potential kudos to Aaron Glavas, GlavasC@si.edu.

Funding

Conner Prairie (Fishers, Indiana) announced a partnership with Ritz Charles to invest approximately $3 million to renovate and expand Eli Lilly’s historic Chinese House. Support for the project includes a $500,000 pledge from Jay and Nancy Ricker, the founders of Ricker Oil Company, Inc., and a $500,000 grant from the Lilly Endowment Inc.

Rhode Island Council for the Humanities announced a total of $136,429 in new grants to 14 humanities initiatives across the state including the Rhode Island Historical Society (Providence). The Society received a $12,000 Documentary Films grant to support films that preserve Rhode Island’s stories and bring its history to life.  The funding goes towards the development of the film Triple Decker, A New England Love Story.

DaVinci at New Mexico Museum of Natural History and ScienceThe New Mexico Humanities Council awarded a $5,000 grant to the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science to support its series of education programs, Da Vinci Dialogues. The Dialogues consist of public lectures, panel discussions, and workshops that illustrate the many facets of Da Vinci’s genius as an artist, inventor, and scientist.

Awards and Recognition

Silos & Smokestacks National Heritage Area (SSNHA) has named the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium (Dubuque, Iowa) the “Silos & Smokestacks People’s Site of the Year.”

During the Pennsylvania Museums Annual Statewide Museum Conference, the winners of statewide Institutional Achievement Awards were announced including two Senator John Heinz History Center sites. Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Historic Village was recognized for its newest educational curriculum, First Peoples: Archaeology at the Meadowcroft Rockshelter. The Fort Pitt Museum at Point State Park, Downtown, was recognized for its newest exhibition, From Maps to Mermaids: Carved Powder Horns in Early America.

Leadership Changes

W. James Burns has been named the new executive director of the Arizona Historical Society (Phoenix, Arizona). Dr. Burns comes to the Arizona Historical Society from the University of Arizona, where he served as Director of the Center for Creative Photography and the University of Arizona Museum of Art.

W. James Burns, Ph.D., Executive Director, Arizona Historical Society, Phoenix, AZ

Affiliations at AAM 2018

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Myriam Springuel

Meet Myriam Springuel, Smithsonian Affiliations Interim Director and SITES Director on Monday and Tuesday during the AAM Meeting. Photo by Dane Penland. [Apollo DestinationMoon-2-22-2017-0223] [NASM2017-00421]

Are you headed to the American Alliance of Museums Annual Meeting in Phoenix? Three Smithsonian Affiliations team members will be attending and have organized several opportunities to meet with Affiliates.

On Monday, May 7, brainstorm possible programs and events with the Smithsonian and fellow Affiliates around the 50th anniversary of the lunar landing in 2019. We’ll also talk about how we can work together to promote and leverage one another’s programming. 3:00 – 4:00 pm in the Curtis Room, 2nd Floor, Hyatt Regency Phoenix.

On Tuesday, May 8, meet the team at the SITES booth in the MuseumExpo! Interim Affiliations Director, Myriam Springuel; Interim Associate Director, Tricia Edwards; and National Outreach Manager, Laura Hansen, will be at the booth for an informal meet and greet. 3:00 – 5:00 pm, Booth 2814, MuseumExpo.

Throughout the meeting, look for Laura Hansen, National Outreach Manager. Laura works with Affiliate partners in the west and can answer any questions about the benefits of a Smithsonian Affiliation. Want to meet with her? Email her for availability- HansenL@si.edu.

Affiliates are featured in many AAM sessions.  We’ve compiled a list below of sessions in which Smithsonian Affiliates are presenting or moderating. Stop in and say hello, or stick around for the entire session. Don’t forget to mention us in any social media posts – we’re @SIAffiliates on Twitter and @smithsonianaffiliates on Instagram. Have a great time in Phoenix!

If you don’t see your session listed, please let us know.

Sunday, May 6 

1:00 – 2:15 PM
Room 226ABC
Beyond the Four Walls: Effectively Assessing Museum Programs in School Classrooms
Featuring the Museum of the African Diaspora (San Francisco, California) and the Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor (Honolulu, Hawaii)

Room 125 AB
Case Study: Live-Tweeting a Century-Old Race Riot: Sharing Difficult History through Social Media
Featuring the Senator John Heinz History Center (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)

tricia edwards

Meet Tricia Edwards, Smithsonian Affiliations Interim Associate Director, on Monday and Tuesday too.

Room 128 AB
Education Collections: Connect with Me, and I Care
Featuring Conner Prairie (Fishers, Indiana) and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (Denver, Colorado)

2:30 – 3:45 PM
Room 225AB
A Tale of Three Buildings: The Things You Need to Know before You Start Your Renovation 
Featuring the Heard Museum (Phoenix, Arizona)

Room 129 AB
Leaders in Education Leading Museums
Featuring the Springfield Museum of Art (Springfield, Ohio)

Room 231ABC
Stop, Experiment, and Listen: A Fresh Approach to Creative Problem Solving 
Featuring the National Civil Rights Museum (Memphis, Tennessee)

Find Laura Hansen, Smithsonian Affiliations National Outreach Manager, throughout the entire AAM Meeting. Email her to set up a meeting- HansenL@si.edu

Room 229AB
Who’s the Boss? Examining the Relationship Between Exhibition Contractors and Staff
Featuring the National World War II Museum (New Orleans, Louisiana)

4:00 – 5:15 PM
Room 227 ABC
Engaging the Arctic: Working with Northern Communities to Tell Their Stories
Featuring the Anchorage Museum (Anchorage, Alaska)

Monday, May 7

8:45 – 10:00 AM
Room 131 ABC
Decolonizing the Museum: Reflection, Vision, and Change
Featuring the Abbe Museum (Bar Harbor, Maine)

Room 126 ABC
Equity at the Heart of Professional Learning
Featuring the Ohio History Connection (Columbus, Ohio)

Room 121 BC
From Leadership to Impact: Taking Risks, Redefining Success, and Finding Your Voice
Featuring the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham, Alabama)

1:45 – 3:00 PM
Room 221 ABC
Straight to the Source: Connect and Engage with Teens in Your Community
Featuring the Bakken Museum (Minneapolis, Minnesota)

Room 222 ABC
Museum Compensation: Best Practices in Design for Sustainability
Featuring the Anchorage Museum (Anchorage, Alaska)

Room 225 AB
(Non)Profiteering: Mission Versus Margin
Featuring The Museum of Flight (Seattle, Washington)

Room 229 AB
The Role of the Community Engagement Curator
Featuring the Heard Museum (Phoenix, Arizona)

Tuesday, May 8

8:45 – 10:00 AM
Room 228 AB
75 Ideas in 75 Minutes – Accessibility Edition
Featuring the John G. Shedd Aquarium (Chicago, Illinois)

Room 129 AB
Are Museums the Right Home for Confederate Monuments?
Featuring the North Carolina Museum of History (Raleigh, North Carolina)

Room 227 ABC
Breaking Free: Two Years of Curating Our Communities
Featuring the Cincinnati Museum Center (Cincinnati, Ohio)

Room 226 ABC
A Dialogue with IMLS Reviewers: Tips and Techniques from the Experts
Featuring the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience (Seattle, Washington)

Room 229 AB
Making Space for (Other) Voices: Challenging Perceptions
Featuring the Arizona State Museum (Tucson, Arizona)

1:30 – 2:45 PM
Room 222 ABC
Membership on Center Stage to Deliver Financial Impact and Transform Museum Cultures
Featuring Space Center Houston (Houston, Texas)

Room 121 ABC
Case Study: Collections Inventories in Support of Object-Based Learning Programs
Featuring the Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor (Honolulu, Hawaii)

Room 122 AB
Case Study: The National World War II Museum Reimagines Its Digital Presence
Featuring The National World War II Museum (New Orleans, Louisiana)

Room 122 AB
Case Study: Social Humanity Immersed in Technology: The Art of Modern Communication
Featuring the Anchorage Museum (Anchorage, Alaska)

Wednesday, May 9

10:15 – 11:30 AM

Room 231 ABC
10 Practical Actions to Museum Accessibility
Featuring the Saint Louis Science Center (St. Louis, Missouri)

Room 128 AB
A Change in Elevation: Museums Rising to the Challenge of Equity
Featuring the Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, Michigan)

Room 229 AB
Measuring Visitor Motivation, Expectations, and Satisfaction
Featuring the Senator John Heinz History Center (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)

Room 129 AB
Museums and Race Report Card: Looking Back to Move Forward
Featuring the San Diego Museum of Man (San Diego, California)

Room 125 AB
Project Management: It’s Not Just for Breakfast Anymore
Featuring The Museum of Flight (Seattle, Washington)

11:45 AM – 1:00 PM

Room 124 AB
Inspiring Latinx Community Engagement through a Traveling Exhibition Mentorship
Featuring the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center (Austin, Texas)

Room 125 AB
Inclusionary Museums: Paths to Elevation in Descendant Communities
Featuring the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum Seminole Tribe of Florida (Clewiston, Florida)

Room 231 ABC
Teaching Teachers: Using Evaluation to Develop Effective Professional Development
Featuring Mystic Seaport Museum (Mystic, Connecticut)

Room 131 ABC
(Not as) Easy as 1,2,3: The ABCs of Collections Moves
Featuring The National World War II Museum (New Orleans, Louisiana)

Room 128 AB
Not for Sale: Preserving a Community Collection
Featuring the Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles, California)