”How will we know when we have reached our goal of being fully inclusive?”

It was a great question, but I’m not sure anyone liked the answer.

Everyone likes to know that their programs are measurable, and that they’re progressing towards a satisfactory completion.

”We won’t,” I answered.

I wasn’t trying to be a smart alec. I really wasn’t. I was serious.

”No, seriously! When?”

”Never.” I replied. “We will never be fully inclusive, and never be able to measure that on anyone else‘s behalf.” I smiled.

I went on to say that inclusiveness isn’t something we can just prepare an extended checklist to measure—something standard across all museums—and then, having checked everything off the list, we’re suddenly inclusive!

No: the whole point of being inclusive is that it is other-centered. It’s visitor-centered, and not all visitors will return to complete an evaluation of how and why we were inclusive. Potential visitors might not be able to put their fingers on it, but they may or may not be more likely to visit based on your increased marketing efforts or a changed approach.

Inclusion isn’t about you; it’s about them. And there are so many kinds of people and museum visitors and truth seekers in the world that we many never 100 percent adequately serve one, much less all.

The point of inclusion—from the standpoint of becoming increasingly culturally responsive, responsible, aware, and competent—is to do less harm than we and others have done in the past—ultimately to do no harm.

When we forget to use a colleague‘s preferred pronoun one day, make sure to remember the next day.

When we ignore a perfectly sound resume because the applicant attended a community college instead of an Ivy League university, confront your bias and do better next time.

When you see that you have the habit of not calling on the women in your senior leadership meetings to speak, notice and course correct immediately.

Inclusion starts with self-reflection, with introspection…and it never ends. It will not end until every staff member has the same practice of self-reflection and commitment, so that at each level of museum employment and cultural life the staff are engaged in deep and meaningful transformation. As the staff practices on themselves and on others, your museum will have an improved cultural story and reputation.

The decisions about whom to partner with during Black History Month or how to create gender-neutral restrooms will no longer be internal political fights or based on excuses, such as a lack of resources or not knowing the right people. We will lose our fears and will commit to doing the right thing because we will be focused on empathy.

There are so many ways our museum workspaces, classrooms, boards rooms, galleries, rental spaces, shops, restaurants, and common areas could be more focused on inclusion.

To name a few: inclusive language, respectful communication, nurturing, promoting, and listening to diverse employees; having true dialogues between the always-heard and the seldom-heard; focus groups with the community; curating works that are collaborative, tolerant of various styles of artistic expression and art makers; integrating other languages (including Braille and ASL!) even where ASL is not regulated.

Every step, no matter how small, counts. We may feel overwhelmed at first, but there’s no excuse not to try.

[This post originally appeared on the author’s blog, Museum Musings, where she writes about diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion in museums.]

Among my highlights of 2017 was a letter that came to me from the pen of Ms. Laura Lott, President & CEO of the American Alliance of Museums and Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole, then recently retired from the Smithsonian, inviting participation in a new endeavor—a short-term working group that would examine diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion (DEAI) efforts Alliance-wide and make initial recommendations out of its findings. Ultimately, the goal would be to streamline and standardize DEAI norms and nomenclature to help the field more easily understand and implement best practices that would serve audiences who are too frequently removed from the dialogue. The terms of the invitation stated a five- or six-session involvement; most likely one day per month from early spring to late summer; to work at the AAM offices in Arlington, Virginia, convening with bright, active, energetic minds and hearts around these important issues. Of course, I would attend!

I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I agreed to go. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the DC area are not too far away in distance, so a few hours’ drive here, a same-day round-trip travel there was not too difficult to arrange. What proved challenging was the coming together of more than 20 minds and hearts in unison around definitions, approaches, suggested strategies, and paths forward. These were 20 colleagues—most of whom I had met in person and truly respected—with perhaps 300 cumulative museum years among us: directors, independent professionals, volunteers, curators, educators, board members, enthusiasts. All of us had something meaningful to contribute to discussions of diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion. We all came from across the United States representing different backgrounds, identifying in several different ways and ordering those differences through different lenses and with different weights. Our communication styles and passion for teaching and learning shone through as we debated hour after hour in the AAM conference room whether accessibility should refer solely to disability justice, whether and where language difference should be categorized, and why the term “diversity” should still matter, jaded as the term had become.

Led by co-chair Dr. Johnnetta Cole, erstwhile Director of the Smithsonian Institute’s Museum of African Art, we bantered playfully, respectfully, and persuasively to get our points across. Many of us spoke for more than ourselves—we represented peers, groups, institutions, and alliances. We wanted to make sure all the voices were heard—around the table and outside the circle. Dr. Cole would often include ancestral voices, calling on old African proverbs to shape our call to action and invite us to reflect. Co-chair Laura Lott gave of her time and talents as the AAM institutional leader, sometimes answering hard questions about whether and when DEAI plans or efforts would figure into future accreditation requirements or what the role of AAM was in suggesting or mandating DEAI strategies. AAM’s then director of inclusion, Dr. Nicole Ivy, brought with her a soft Southern charm and humor that warmed us to the work and focused our feelings.

While DEAI work is not new to many fields, it is relatively new to museums. As I like to say, “There was never a Brown v. Board for museums.” We found that while many museums had community outreach and education programs that “included multicultural voices” or “reached the underserved,” few seemed to have strategies across their museums to address personal, internal, and external museum work with and for staff, visitor, and community constituents. Was there an equitable and diverse mix of staff at each level of museum professional work? Could staff of color move up the ranks in leadership? Were LGBTQ staff allowed to be their authentic selves at work? We found that we needed to clearly define each term in the acronym: they were too often commingled and too easily misunderstood. We formed subgroups of the Working Group members to explore these issues in greater depth. We had homework to do in-between monthly meetings. We looked forward to speaking on the phone during our monthly lulls. We researched, discussed ideas with colleagues, and brought our best work to the boardroom when we once again convened. In order to be fully immersed in the work, we needed to involve the individuals and groups for whom we were speaking, and that required intentional, authentic discussion in real time.

After our third or fourth meeting, it was clear we had enough data and sense of direction to document our findings as a working group in the form of a report that could be used by museums as a guide, for their edification, understanding, and support. Our deep work would soon become a standard by which museum professionals could measure their knowledge about the importance of diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion in every facet of museum work and life.

The six meetings I was able to attend in-person and by phone were among the best meetings of my career. They modeled dignity and respect despite varying opinions and many areas of difference. It could have been so easy to become despondent or frustrated—yet our mutual affection and a singular eye to the goal in mind fueled our successes. I have attended lengthy day-long meetings before and still do. The difference is that the synergy and sense of purpose that permeated our Working Group propelled us to a creative, sound product of which we all were proud. Dr. Ivy published the report in its entirety in the spring of this year, along with a shorter snapshot of our findings. Since that time, I have heard many practitioners across the field refer to our shared definitions, reference the work, and contemplate the same challenging questions that allowed us to think more deeply and clearly about the impact of DEAI in museums today.

I’m truly grateful for the opportunity to have worked shoulder to shoulder with brilliant colleagues on this effort, and I can’t wait to see what the Alliance does next!

With such a vast and crucial extended network of colleagues (DivCom’s membership totals more than 1,000 people and AAM’s own numbers approach 36 times that), it’s hard not to think about those we won’t get to see at the upcoming jam-packed museum learning event.

As DivCom Co-chair, I’m often asked if there are stipends or scholarships available to subsidize registration fees, travel, or housing. As one of the Professional Networks of AAM that deals with equity and access, we are keenly aware that attendance at an annual meeting—even a single meeting—is a privilege.

This means, at the fore, that those who have the ability to attend should make the most of it by attending with their full and present selves, as far as possible. While the promise of parties and ad hoc meetups is exciting, have an eye towards the meat of the event—the carefully selected presentations, the Expo that could hold the answer to a retail or programming challenge, the planned presentations, and the group events that celebrate museum excellence.

But what of those who cannot attend? I’d argue that, increasingly, the Alliance is geared towards inclusion and collaboration. We are, indeed, an alliance of colleagues and leadership whose charge it is to connect with, and support, each other in our endeavors. With regards to the Annual Meeting, the intention is to be mindful of those who can’t physically attend and create pathways for continued learning long after the convention center is vacated. While there are pragmatic reasons for hoping that the attendance at AAM tops 5,000 each year, it would never be possible for all members to attend at once. Many museum professionals, students, and others will never have the opportunity to attend a professional conference due to timing, access, lack of funds, or scheduling.

How can you participate without being there in person?

1. Follow the conversations online. Whether the conversations are happening in AAM’s online Open Forum or via Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or some other public platform, following along might help you to catch a sense of what the Annual Meeting is like—where and when events occur, what major topics of conversation and learning might be, and how it’s received among the community, realizing that the community includes you. You can follow DivCom on Twitter @AAMdivcom or via our Facebook group! You also can stay connected during the meeting via our social media journalists: follow them via #AAMSMJ.
2. Even if you don’t physically attend the Annual Meeting, you can let your voice be heard. Maybe there’s a poll about how your organization handles signage or wayfinding. Perhaps there’s a survey for new graduates from museum studies programs, or about how inclusive your staff might be. Please help to provide useful data and perspectives. You never know: your responses and thought leadership could help other colleagues prepare for, and deliver, powerful presentations to others who are changemakers in their own realms. In that respect, you too could be a catalyst for change when people come together at the annual meeting and bring ideas back to their home institutions.
3. Keep track of presenters and sessions. The theme, topic, and presenters were painstakingly and thoughtfully selected by the National Program Committee, a group composed of individuals representing diverse professional expertise, regional affiliations, and types of institutions, over the last several months. The messages and concepts they plan to share are aligned with AAM’s mission and vision for the coming year. Even if you are not in the room where it happens, you can tune your minds to these topics, conduct further research, and be equally versed in the matters at hand. Many presenters are willing to be contacted after the Annual Meeting. You never know—you may make lifelong friends and valuable colleague connections that way.
4. Take advantage of your AAM membership and listen to recorded sessions when they become available. Use these sessions as professional development among your colleagues and affinity groups at home, giving an even wider audience to the words of the presenters. The value in this is increased if your leadership can also catch the vision of AAM’s relevance and function. They may be so impressed that they might make it a priority to budget for AAM’s Annual Meeting next year!
5. Finally, reach out to us, the Diversity Committee of AAM (DivCom). Members of each professional network leadership team are required to go to the Annual Meeting for just this reason: that we can keep up-to-date and be a support to our membership. We’d love to hear from you!

Connect with DivCom at the AAM Annual Meeting!

May 6 | Creative Coalitions Event at SRP Heritage Center, 6-8 p.m.: Meet up with representatives from AAM’s Professional Networks and learn how to get involved while you enjoy snacks and drinks and the newly opened Salt River Project Heritage Center! DivCom representatives will be there to speak with guests and staff a table with activities and resources. (The ticket purchase deadline has passed, but you can buy (and sell) tickets from other attendees at the Ticket Exchange.)

May 7 | AAM Open Forum, 1:30-3:30 p.m.: Join DivCom, AAM leadership, and museum professionals interested in social justice and equity for a participatory conversation around diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion in the museum field. Topics for discussion will include gender equity in museums, museum accessibility, museum neutrality, and other emergent issues.

May 7 | #DrinkingAboutEquity, 5:30-7 p.m. at Valley Bar (130 N Central Ave, Downtown Phoenix): Join us to connect with peers in solidarity, share resources, connections and strategies, build community and power for social justice, with an emphasis on racial justice, focused transformation across arts, and cultural and humanities organizations. It always takes place at a local POC-owned and/or woman-owned restaurant or bar (and preferably one close to mass transit options). We also always ensure that the venue has delicious non-alcohol drink options. Valley Bar is a woman-owned business in Downtown Phoenix. The venue is ADA accessible. Look for updates about this meet-up to be posted on DivCom’s Facebook Group this month!

This informal meet-up is a riff on #drinkingaboutmuseums, which was first organized by 3 arts and cultural workers in Seattle (Chieko Phillips, Priya Frank, & Aletheia Wittman) last year. This edition will be hosted by DivCom and bring the format to AAM attendees.

Accessibility Statement:

DivCom is fully committed to ensuring that all of our communications, events, and programs are accessible so that all of our members and staff can participate meaningfully and equitably.  DivCom recognizes that equity in access for people with disabilities is integral to diversity and that enhancing access for people with disabilities has a positive impact on everyone’s experience.  DivCom seeks input and welcomes feedback from our members to help us improve accessibility in our communications and content.

Stay connected with us through the Annual Meeting and throughout the year on Twitter (@AAMdivcom) and through our Facebook group! You can also reach us at divcomchair@aam-us.org.