Federal Grant will Fund Professional Development for Museums10 Staff

The project—“Museums10 Workforce Development: A Collaborative Approach for the Future”—will provide training over a range of critical topic areas, including personnel management, exhibitions, diversity and inclusion, external relations, and collections management. The training will benefit a community that includes some 200 museum staff members and 100 student interns and, by extension, the tens of thousands of people who attend these institutions each year.

The funding is from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), an independent federal agency, and will be matched with resources from Museums10 and Five Colleges. The Five College Consortium was among 49 organizations applying for the grant, and one of eight awarded funding.

The three-year effort will begin on August 1 and will be led by Jennifer Schantz, the director of The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, a longtime member of Museums10, in collaboration with a cohort of museum directors from Museums10. The other Museums10 institutions are: the Beneski Museum of Natural History, the Emily Dickinson Museum, the Hampshire College Art Gallery, Historic Deerfield, the Mead Art Museum, the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, the Smith College Museum of Art, the University Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Yiddish Book Center.

“Investing in museum professional development is investing in the preservation of culture, the enrichment of community, and the enlightenment of future generations. It empowers museum professionals to transform spaces into gateways of knowledge and wonder,” said Schantz. “We are so grateful to IMLS for investing in our future.”

With an associate director being hired to facilitate it, the Museums10 Workforce Development project will provide a suite of seminars, workshops, and trainings for museum staff to choose from, based on their work area and interests. In addition, professional development pathways will offer student interns skill-building opportunities to prepare them for museum careers.

“A robust, responsive workforce is the heart of America’s museums,” said IMLS Acting Director Cyndee Landrum. “Through the 21st Century Museum Professionals Program, we are investing in a vibrant and dynamic museum workforce at all levels to amplify our diverse history and culture, disseminate knowledge, and champion innovation in service to the public.”

Based in Amherst, MA, Five Colleges, Incorporated, sustains and enriches the excellence of its members—Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges and the University of Massachusetts Amherst—through academic and administrative collaboration. The consortium facilitates intellectual communities and broad curricular and co-curricular offerings, affording learning, research, performance, and social opportunities that complement the distinctive qualities of each institution.
For more information, contact Kevin Kennedy • kkennedy@fivecolleges.edu • 413-542-4017