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 Hilton Chicago, Chicago, IL Hosted by the DuSable Museum of African American History SESSION INFORMATION Daily Schedule: Wednesday, Aug. 27 Thursday, Aug. 28 Friday, Aug. 29 Saturday, Aug. 30 THURSDAY, AUGUST 28 7:45 a.m. - 8:45 a.m. STANDING PROFESSIONAL COMMITTEE BREAKFAST MEETINGS
OPENING PLENARY SESSION AAAM Annual Business Meeting 10:15 a.m. – 11:45 a.m. CONCURRENT SESSIONS A Revisioning Oakland: Museums at the Crossroads Two thriving, major Bay Area cultural institutions, (one ethnic-specific and the other mainstream) which are vital to growth of their community, have successfully created a collaborative and respectful relationship with each other while undergoing intensive reinstallation/renovation projects. The African American Museum and Library at Oakland (AAMLO) and the Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) have been representative voices both of and for the myriad communities that comprise the great state of California. This session will focus on successful exhibitions and annual events/programs, audience development, collections management, governance, docents and volunteers, as well as offer tips to conducting a productive, successful collaboration. Presenters: Rick Moss, African American Museum and Library at Oakland; Carolee Smith, Ann Dickson and Susan Quinn, Oakland Museum of California; and Veda Silva, African American Museum and Library at Oakland. Audience Development: Successes & Challenges of African & African American Art Support Groups for the African American Community in Mainstream Museums The panel members from the National Alliance of African & African American Art Support Groups' will discuss audience development, successes & challenges, how to increase audiences through exhibitions, programs, membership, and donors cultivation around African & African American art with support from the black community. Presenters: Carolyn Gautier Adams, Adams & Associates; Renee Franklin, Saint Louis Art Museum; Sande Robinson, Milwaukee Museum of Art; Yvonne Thomas and Vernita Henderson, Taft Museum of Art; and Olivia White, Amistad Center at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. Making Traveling Exhibitions Your Own Though many traveling exhibitions are designed as “cookie cutter” installations, like snowflakes, no two exhibition spaces are alike. Therefore, when traveling exhibitions enter your space, there are ways of making them uniquely your own. Discover methods that will enhance traveling exhibitions (within the parameters of the contract) that will have your visitors excited not just with the subject matter, but with the presentation as well! Chair: Charles E. Bethea, Chief Curator, DuSable Museum of African American History Leadership Initiative for African American Museums: A National Professional Development Project For the past year, representatives from fourteen African American museums and cultural institutions have participated in a professional development project sponsored by the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in collaboration with the Association of African American Museums. Supported by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Leadership Initiative for African American Museums was designed to provide training for current staff members to build institutional capacity in four areas: strategic planning, budget management, audience development and collaboration, and grant writing. A panel of Leadership Initiative participants and consultants will share the story of the successes, challenges and lessons learned from this project. Moderator: Priscilla Hancock Cooper, Project Director, Vice President of Institutional Programs, Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. OPENING DAY LUNCHEON Keynote Speaker: Dr. John Fleming, Association for the Study of African American Life and History 1:45 p.m. – 3:15 p.m. CONCURRENT SESSIONS B "A Gathering Place for Freedom": An Exhibition to Commemorate the 200th Anniversary of the African Meeting House Meet the team who developed "A Gathering Place for Freedom," the latest exhibition from the Museum of African American History. Topics to be discussed are story development, research issues, item selection, design and installation considerations, publicity guidelines, educational outreach programs and partnerships. Presenters: Beverly Morgan-Welch, Museum of African American History – Boston; Dr. Lois Brown, Mount Holyoke College; Chandra Harrington and L’Merchie Frazier, Museum of African American History-Boston. Annual Giving: An Investment in Your Museum's Future An interactive “how-to” session for Museum professionals, this session covers the basics of starting and administering an annual giving program with emphasis on affordable ideas for small and medium development departments. Additionally techniques will be shared for keeping the annual giving program vibrant year after year. Chair: Alisa M. Smallwood, National Civil Rights Museum The Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor: The Nuts and Bolts of Heritage Preservation Through the efforts of Congressman James E. Clyburn (SC), the National Park Service (NPS) created the Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, an area nearly the size of Maryland that stretches from the coastal counties of the Carolinas to Northern Florida. The establishment of this Corridor followed a NPS Special Resource Study (2000-2005) that recognizes Gullah-Geechee culture as significant to the development of the Southeast region and foundation of the United States. It is the only National Heritage Area dedicated to Africans and the African American experience in the United States. Panelists for this session represent skills in interpretation, educational programs and community-based cultural programs designed to increase the awareness of Gullah-Geechee culture. This session will provide both factual information and pragmatic heritage preservation strategies that are particularly relevant to African American cultural institutions. Presenters: Dr. Deborah Mack, The Museum Group; Emory Campbell, Gullah Heritage Consulting Services; and Michael Allen, Charles Pinckney National Historic Site-NPS Moving Forward: Creative Institutional Administration in the Twenty-first Century Raising money, contracting/hiring staff, publishing catalogues, and applying for grants are tasks that museum and gallery administrators must undertake in order to run a successful institution in the twenty-first century. Many times, these tasks must be accomplished with only a small or volunteer staff. This panel will focus on the challenges of museum administration, fund raising, and publishing as they relate to operating a college museum, starting up a major African American museum, and creating a community-based arts studio and gallery. Presenters: Dr. Andrea Barnwell Brownlee, Spelman College Museum of Fine Art; Larry Earl, Houston Museum of African American Culture; and, Willis “Bing” Davis, Willis “Bing” Davis Art Studio and EboNia Gallery 3:15 p.m. - 3:45 p.m. Exhibit Hall BREAK 3:45 p.m. – 5:15 p.m. CONCURRENT SESSIONS C We Were Here: Making New Hampshire's Black Heritage Visible This panel will profile three successful campaigns that have made New Hampshire’s Black Heritage visible and will demonstrate how this celebration of black history is revitalizing communities. Presenters will also introduce current research that is resurrecting the history of a Black presence in New Hampshire that stretches back 350 years. Presenters: JerriAnne Boggis, University of New Hampshire; Valerie Cunningham, University of New Hampshire; and, Richard Alperin, Independent Scholar "Memories of You" : Preserving Jazz Sites and Their Material Culture Jazz has long been recognized as a uniquely American art form. But the expert preservation of jazz artifacts and historic sites is a relatively recent undertaking. Hear three leaders in the field present the joys and unique challenges of preserving and interpreting jazz historic sites and jazz artifacts. Presenters: Michael Cogswell, Louis Armstrong House Museum; Greg Carroll, American Jazz Museum; and, Dr. Leah Tucker, Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame Staying Relevant - Creating the ABC’s of Black Museums for Early Childhood Audiences If museums are to take a leading role in providing new and meaningful learning experiences for communities of learners then studying visitor learning needs to be part of an active research program. Through analyzing audiences research studies that use a variety of approached to uncover visitor outcomes, we can begin to build pictures of what people are learning from their museum experience. This study investigated the effectiveness of a combined museum and classroom intervention project on early childhood learning with Head Start children. The focus of the program was on children’s content knowledge and concept complexity. Utilizing the alphabet participants can become familiar with Black museums and the work that they do. Chair: Dr. Deborah Johnson-Simon, Penn Center, St. Helena Island, SC Developing the National Museum of African American History and Culture: A Discussion Forum In 2015, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture will open on the national mall in Washington DC. In this forum, NMAAHC Director Lonnie Bunch will engage AAAM members in conversations about expectations for the new museum and developing plans for the building’s opening exhibition program. Moderator: Lonnie Bunch, Director, National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC. Panelists: Vernon Courtney, Board Chair, Association of African American Museums; and Kinshasha Holman Conwill, Deputy Director, National Museum of African American History and Culture. |
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