Weighing Outputs: Measuring Social Impact in Museums and Nonprofits
November 18, 2009
Photo from hollis333.wordpress.com
Since writing my last post, I’ve done a bit more thinking about our most recent prompt within the Nonprofit Millennial Bloggers Alliance: How do you measure social impact? Check out some of the responses so far. Don’t forget to follow us on twitter and add your 2 cents by using the tag #NMBA.
Evidence-based policy is not the only thing compelling museums and community centers to come up with some sort of accurate measure of social impact. Donors want to know where their money is going. How is the museum elevating the community? What is the impact of museum programs and exhibits?
…But how do you measure the unmeasurable? Perhaps a certain interactive exhibit at a science center inspired the spark that will fuel a young girl to become a paleoanthropologist in 15 years. How do we measure that– and how do we even know if that spark took place at all?
It makes sense that we have a tendency to focus primarily on outputs (clients served or number of programs performed) rather than outcomes (desired goals) in museum environments. According to Hill and Lynn in Public Management: a Three-Dimentional Approach,
“Outputs may be the only type of measure available, as outcomes may not be available until well after management decisions have been made. The question, then, is to what extent output measures actually correspond to outcome measures?”
Measuring solely outputs in museum environments (especially in regard to community engagement), provides an immediate advantage and a long-term disadvantage in attracting donors. Let’s examine, for example, the fact that the typical output measurement tends to be how many people participate in a program or community engagement event (let’s say that’s 50 people). Our desired outcome is a sparked interest in a certain subject matter (let’s say that 10 years after their visit, 5 people still remember the program and have taken classes in the subject matter, engaged friends in the subject, or passed along the lessons they learned during the program to their children).
Output reporting advantage: The museum may report to donors that 50 people participated in the program. That is 50 potential sparks. The amount reported here is not the amount of people who retained the lessons learned in the program (which we won’t know until years later), but rather the maximum amount of people who could have been sparked by the subject matter during the program.
Output reporting disadvantage: While reporting the output (50 people) may look impressive to higher-level management and potential donors at the time of an annual report, the knowledge of the true outcome of the program (that it altered the lives of 5 individuals in a positive way) is more impressive than the fact that 50 people merely participated. Moreover, the outcome could grow past the amount of original participants if those sparked share their knowledge and with others.
Though output reporting provides an immediate advantage that often proves inaccurate several years down the road (for better or worse), we often have no other choice but to measure outputs because outcomes are not available to us immediately. As more and more museums, nonprofits, and community centers are encouraged to measure social impact through outputs, the old saying still rings true: quality is greater than quantity. It’s possible that outcomes may far exceed (even impressive) outputs.
Sizing up the Graduate Degrees of 17 Top Museum Directors
October 23, 2009
I’ve often heard that you create your own career success and there isn’t one “correct” path to follow. Tonight I looked up the academic backgrounds of the museum directors leading 17 of the top 25 most visited museums and I found that it’s true: there isn’t one path to success–at least not in the museum world, and at least not in terms of a specific graduate degree.
Whenever I visit a museum that impresses me (for any number of reasons: innovative exhibits, creative outreach efforts– things that require an element of risk, in the name of education, on the part of the museum), I immediately look up the bio of the museum’s President/C.E.O. It’s just a habit that I have. I’ve often wondered what it takes to reach the top of the museum-ladder. What do you need to do to be that person who gets to make decisions about cutting-edge exhibits and programs? How do you get to be the great mastermind behind the community partnerships?
I am not arguing that these are the only innovative museums out there, and I am especially not displaying a survey of what degrees are common for all museum directors… but I think these findings are interesting as there are several types of degrees represented; and there certainly is not a clear path indicated here.
When possible, I included the field in which the degree was received. The eight missing institutions from the list of the 25 most visited were omitted because bios were difficult to find. Please post a comment if you find the academic information for any of the other museums that are not included on this list!
Here’s a quick summary of my findings:
- The only type of degree that all 17 leaders have is a bachelor’s degree.
- Directors with master’s degrees and doctorates: 8 (slightly less than half)
- Master’s degrees only: 2
- M.B.As: 3
- J.Ds: 2
- Directors with a only bachelor’s degree: 2
- Percent of included directors with an MBA, JD, or Ph.D: 76.5%
- Number of directors with degrees from Harvard: 5 (29%)
- Total number of degrees earned by these 17 directors: 41
- Average number of degrees earned by each director: 2.4
- Number of directors with degrees from top-ten Universities: 11
- Male directors: 14 (82.3%)
- Female directors: 3 (17.6%)
Take a look:
Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, Washington D.C.
- Cristián Samper- B.A.-Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá; M.A. and Ph.D. - Harvard University
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
- Earl A. Powell III- B.A.- Williams College; M.A. and Ph.D.- Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, N.Y.
- Thomas P. Campbell- B.A. (English) University of Oxford; M.A. – Courtauld Institute of Art
American Museum of Natural History, New York, N.Y.
- Ellen Futter- B.A.- Barnard College; J.D.- Columbia University
Museum of Modern Art, New York, N.Y.
- Glenn D. Lowry- B.A.-Williams College; M.A. and Ph.D. (History of Art)- Harvard University
Houston Museum of Natural Science, Houston, TX
- Joel Bartsch- B.A.-Concordia University; M.A.- Rice University; Ph.D. candidate- Rice University
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.
- Sara J. Bloomfield- B.A. (English)- Northwestern University; M.A. (Education)- John Carroll University
Museum of Science, Boston, MA.
- Ioannis N. Miaoulis- B.S. and Ph.D. (mechanical engineering)- Tufts University; M.A. (economics)- Tufts University; M.A. (mechanical engineering)- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, D.C.
- Kevin Grover- B.A. (public and international affairs)- Princeton University; J.D.- University of New Mexico.
California Science Center, Los Angeles, CA.
- Jeffrey N. Rudolph. B.A. University of California at Berkeley; M.B.A.- Yale University
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
- Peter C. Marzio. B.A.-Juniata College; M.A. and Ph.D.- The University of Chicago
The J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center Museum, Los Angeles, CA.
- Michael Brand- B.A. (Asian studies)-Australian National University in Canberra; M.A. and Ph.D.- Harvard University
Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, Portland, OR.
- Nancy Stueber- B.S. (environmental biology & terrestrial ecology)- University of Pittsburgh
St. Louis Science Center, St. Louis, MO.
- Douglas King- B.S. (engineering)- Stanford University; M.B.A. (finance)- University of Washington.
National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.
- Martin E. Sullivan, B.A.- Siena College; M.A. and Ph.D. (history)- University of Notre Dame
Guggenheim Museum, New York , N.Y.
- Richard Armstrong- B.A. (art history)- Lake Forest College
Field Museum, Chicago, IL.
- John W. McCarter, Jr.- B.A. Princeton University, M.B.A.- Harvard University
Information supplied through comments regarding missing museum directors (thanks for your help in filling in the blanks!):
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
- James Cuno- B.A.- Willamette University; M.A. and Ph.D. (art history)- Harvard University
5 Reasons to be Proud That You Majored in English
August 21, 2009
I’ve always been baffled about why the English major gets such a bad rep. Perhaps this is because it’s an open-ended degree that requires the recipient to ask him or herself, “what would I like to do with these skills I have acquired?” rather than existing as a degree with a built-in career path like marketing, finance, or real estate. 
If you majored in English in college like I did, then you’re probably used to people asking you if you want to be a teacher… all of the time. While some English majors follow their own individual desire to work in education, teaching in secondary schools is actually only the third highest occupational field that employs individuals with only a B.A. in English. The first? They are artists, broadcasters, writers, entertainers, and public relations specialists. The second? They are top and mid-level managers, executives and administrators. As I mentioned, teaching in secondary schools is the third occupational field shown on the list (and all teaching combined is only a bit more than one out of every ten English majors). Despite all of the occupations listed here, I’ve still heard time and again that there isn’t much that one can do with an English major.
Are these people crazy?!
For all of my Oscar-Wilde-reading, Shakespeare-reciting, Plato-referencing, journal-scribbling, fellow English majors out there in the professional world, here are 5 reasons why you can be proud that you received your undergraduate degree in English:
1. You are a good writer.
Being a good writer is one of the top ten most important skills that job candidates are encouraged to have in order to be competitive in the job market. Companies are looking for good writers, and there’s no question that English majors heading out into the workforce have this skill in the bag. It’s nearly impossible to succeed as an English major without being a good writer. Moreover, students choosing this major probably really like writing. When you like something, you do it more often and the more you do something, the better you become.
2. You are an effective communicator
English majors tend to be overall successful communicators, which is why it makes sense that so many of us go on to work in media and communication. The major provides individuals with the critical thinking and public speaking skills required to excel in these positions. Even if you aren’t planning to work in communications, the argument has been made that oral communication competency is the most important skill for business students in the workplace. It may also go without saying that having keen communication skills is absolutely necessary in order to be a good manager in the workforce.
3. You are capable of processing complex ideas
English majors are well practiced in uncovering themes and complex ideas in texts. The kind of thinking that accompanies studying humanities grapples with both big ideas and details. Businesses and hiring managers acknowledge the benefits of this type of thinking. Ernest Suarez, professor and chairman of the English department at The Catholic University of America states in this article that, “Businesses tell us they like to hire English majors because they feel that they can think. They’ve got the writing and analytical skills they need. The rest they can be trained to learn. “
4. You understand people and are able to connect with them
We generally got to read a lot of fiction as English majors, which may have had a positive impact on our ability to connect with people. A study by the Journal of Research in Personality uncovered that frequent readers of narrative fiction score highly on tests of empathy and social acumen. Another study finds that people who read narrative fiction stories score higher on tests involving social reasoning skills than those who are assigned to read a non-fiction essay from the same magazine. This article sums it up, describing English majors as “outgoing, community-spirited individuals who strive to understand culture, society and human interactions.”
5. You are a philosopher, artist, editor, historian, and a provider-of-content.
I’ve based this last point off of a great blog post by Alex J. Tunny called, “In Defense of the English Major.” The wide array of texts that we study as English majors have introduced us to the traditions, values, and methods of thinking from various cultures and points in history. As general Jacks-of-all-Trades, we tend to know a thing or two about several different subjects. Check out this list of famous English majors. You may be surprised by the diversity of the career paths of the folks on this list. If you are an English major, though, you probably won’t be too surprised.
A Bachelor of Arts in English is an open-ended degree providing versatility that might scare folks who are hesitant to pave their own career paths. For those who are willing to take matters into their own hands, though, an English major provides students with skills that are critical in the workplace. Let’s continue to be proud of the skill set that we’ve acquired and keep proving to skeptical folks that English majors have the ability to succeed and excel both inside of the classroom and in the working world.
Art Insight TV: A New Way to Share Knowledge About Art
August 17, 2009
Check out this video in which Art Insight TV creator, Aladine Vargas, uncovers the design and composition behind Norman Rockwell’s Triple Self Portrait. It’s a left-brain approach to art that you may not be used to seeing. Is Vargas’s website the art-lover’s blog of the future, and how can museums benefit and learn from this type of website?
I’ve got to chalk up another point for social media.
I initially came across Art Insight TV through Twitter and I was immediately intrigued. It’s fitting that I stumbled upon the website through a social network because, as website creator, Aladine Vargas, shared with me during our interview, the website aims to evolve based upon the needs and understandings of the art-interested community.
That’s me; I’m an engaged member of the art-interested community! …So what exactly is Art Insight TV and why should I pay attention to it? Last week, I was able to speak to Aladine on the phone in an attempt to answer this question.
The web site’s tag line says it all: Art Insight TV- a behind-the-scenes look at what makes artwork- work. The site is composed of several videos collected and/or created by Vargas, that aim to give visitors the ability to see the intelligence and strategy involved in making art so that they may appreciate the artwork from a different angle. One method in which Vargas does this is by calling our attention to popular works of art such as Rockwell’s Triple Self Portrait (check out the video above!) or Charles Bargue’s Turkish Sentinel and uncovering Saint Andrews Crosses and root-two rectangles within the paintings. If you don’t know what these things are, check out these links and enjoy this public space for curious folks who want to learn about the careful design that goes into making artwork. The site also includes interviews, short lectures, and Aladine’s own artist ‘square-off’s. While this is certainly not the first or last website dedicated to inspiring an understanding of artwork, Aladine may be onto something with his video blog-like method of sharing knowledge.
Art Insight TV is very closely tied to the interests of its creator. When I asked Vargas why he created the website, he said, with regard to art, that many years ago, “we threw out the baby with the bath water.” Through this website, Vargas seeks to spread knowledge that will cultivate an appreciation for design; an appreciation that has been lost. He explained that the goal of the website is not primarily to teach or for him to assume himself an expert, but rather to serve as a vehicle to share his knowledge with the community. Critical themes in regard to his method of sharing knowledge are design, tradition and heritage, and composition. They generally outline his interests, and are things that, according to Aladine, make the artwork work.
The importance of design in creating and understanding artwork was the very first theme that Vargas mentioned in our conversation, explaining that “design is drawing, and drawing is design.” To Vargas, design is the cornerstone of successful art. Vargas says that if you want to read the art, “follow the design and it will tell you the story.” It directs your eye, and lets the viewer know what is important in a picture. His belief in this concept traces back to his own development as a professional artist studying under Myron Barnstone of Barnstone Studios in Pennsylvania. Barnstone continues to be a great teacher for Vargas, and several of the videos on Aladine’s website are attributed to the studio.
Vargas has a passion for the lineage of artists and their work throughout time. In fact, one might say that Vargas follows the same drawing tradition as Barnstone, continuing his heritage of design and serving as a link to Barnstone’s teachings. On Art Insight TV, Aladine shares the inner workings of his own professional artistic lineage, and hopes to uncover links within well known families of artists.
Composition is another important area of focus for Vargas, and it should come as no surprise that successful design, according to Aladine, is often the basis of a successful composition. Vargas discusses design rather mathematically, in a way that was refreshing for someone like myself who studied art formally, but didn’t spend much time focusing on the lines and geometry of masterpieces. The videos certainly do make me recognize and appreciate the work behind the artwork.
Who is Art Insight TV made for? To this question, Vargas said it was simply for the folks visiting the site. For better or worse, he is not aiming his videos toward a certain demographic, but rather sharing his knowledge in a way that makes sense to him. He admits that the site would be best understood by adult audiences who are interested in learning more about the design behind artwork.
Does Aladine Vargas’s website offer a sneak-peak into the blogs of art-lovers of the future? In these days of heighted social networking and personal branding, I suspect that it does. A recent post by the Center for the Future of Musems (which I find myself quoting quite a bit recently) states,
We are entering an age in which people don’t just want to be lectured to by experts, they want to contribute and curate their own content. In this environment, curators may evolve from being lecturers and authors to being moderators of discussions and editors of content.”
Art Insight TV’s mission is much like that of the traditional museum: to share knowledge in the hopes of inspiring interest in a certain area. The difference? Aladine creates a community based upon his own interests and findings. That is, this website is personal, but it also it seeks to create personal connections to site visitors. This is a website that I believe the museum world may benefit from following. There may be opportunities for community engagement on the rise from this kind of fact-based personal and interactive site.
Perhaps the most delightful thing about my interview with Vargas was his sincere ardor for cultivating an understanding of art history and his great hope to make a splash in the history of art history. He is a passionate speaker, groping with larger questions about the divorce between the artist and the public, telling countless stories of his personal experiences, and utilizing left-brained thinking that seems sometimes forgotten when examining artwork. For example, when I asked Aladine about the many lines, crosses, and rectangles that he attributes to good design and how they might allow the artist to practice creativity, Vargas had an interesting answer: he said that boundaries make you truly creative by providing an area for creativity. I nodded my head. How could I forget Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous quote, “Man built most nobly when limitations were at their greatest?” But the truth is, I did forget this quote. Aladine and Art Insight TV made me remember and, in a way that I wasn’t used to doing, it made me appreciate the left-brain guidance in a generally considered right-brained practice.
Aladine’s whole site is like this. It’s a one-man show, sharing his knowledge of design and tradition with those who are willing to learn. Aladine has a deep love for Norman Rockwell, so don’t be surprised if more of those works pop up on the site in the future. Will we see any Pollock, Max Ernst, Kandinsky, or any members of the abstract expressionist lineage on this design-heavy site that values the rectangles and ratios?
I don’t know, but I’m excited to keep visiting Art Insight TV to find out.
Where are Museum Studies Graduate Programs Going Wrong?
August 12, 2009
Photo from success.co.il
Recently, I’ve come across several interesting blog posts about museology/museum studies graduate programs and everything that is going wrong or working against these graduates: they aren’t getting hired, the field is changing, and museum professionals feel like they are working for too little money. You might be thinking that these are problems that many graduates in the country are facing right now, regardless of industry. That’s what I’m thinking, too. But here’s what I find interesting: for one reason or another, significant blame is being placed on the museum studies programs themselves.
And maybe it is a problem with the current programs. After all, this post about the future of museums, by (none other than) the Center for the Future of Museums, even goes so far as to suggest an interesting and alarming solution for current problems facing the museum industry right now: Stop hiring museum studies graduates.
What’s the basis of this disconnect between museum studies programs and museums? How can these graduate programs be changed to improve the attitudes of graduates and help set more realistic expectations? Admittedly, reading up on the field does leave a museum professional (albeit not enrolled in a Museum Studies graduate program) agreeing that some things may need to be changed.
I’ve fallen madly in love with the thought-provoking ideas brought up in this post by New Curator wherein Pete (the author) serves as a strong advocate fighting for the success of recent museum studies graduates. The post contains a lot of great ideas, and triggered dialogue which has spun off into even more great ideas about ways to improve programs. I think the post is most interesting, though, because it offers a peek into the mindset of these none-too-pleased (and apparently none-too-employed) museum studies graduates.
I want join this discussion by throwing a few more ideas into the mix:
- Perhaps a degree in Museum Studies is something in between a professional and an academic degree, and museum professionals have trouble measuring it against other areas of study
There seems to be some confusion about a master’s degree in museum studies being considered an academic degree or a professional degree– that is, does the degree provide knowledge on academic topics, or is it a degree of the professional development sort? New Curator makes it clear that a master’s degree in museum studies was—and perhaps still is– considered a professional degree by those who chose/choose to enroll in these programs.. and it appears that in museum environments, professional and academic degree recipients are competing for the same jobs. Pete writes, “I’ve read a few things about the skepticism around academia as work training. My Christ, who let in all these Art History and Archaeology PHDs? They’re practically *running* the place and now there’s the hint that a Museum Studies qualification is unnecessary?” I cannot tell if this means that PhDs are running the museum studies programs or running the museums… but the statement, either way, indicates that PhDs are doing something that is valued by the museums.
Maybe the degree is something strangely in between an academic PhD in Art History and a professional M.B.A/ M.P.A. Perhaps Pete is onto something when he writes, “The one thing these people [students in museum studies] are being trained in are now possibly not trained? Or not trained enough, as I notice in another comment that museums are made up of too many specialisms.” This could be the problem, in a sense. Museum studies programs may be both too specialized and not specialized enough. These graduates are competing for museum jobs with other program graduates whose degrees are undoubtedly academic/specialized (anthropology, art history, paleontology) and undoubtedly professional (business management, public policy). While academic degrees prepare candidates for curating positions, professional degrees prepare candidates for museum management. Then the question becomes does museology study the management or the content of museums? The degree’s position in the middle of these worlds can be seen as either awkward or as advantageous. Museum studies programs should play this as an advantage. It won’t be easy (there seem to be far more graduates with degrees on ends of the spectrum), but it may be worth it… and it may create a positive change for program graduates.
- Unemployment is not unique to museum studies graduates right now, and placing graduates in full-time jobs is a difficulty that graduate programs of all varieties are facing
Museum studies graduates seem to be frustrated about their inability to get museum jobs, despite the fact that their education has groomed them to take on valuable roles within these environments. Pete writes, “The bitter taste in the museum student’s mouth was that what they thought was professional development is now considered almost useless to their future compared to the gamble of the job market or the gamble of obtaining a useful contact.” He goes onto say, “Of course, it’s criminal to take their money, hand them a piece of paper and wish them luck with a handshake. Too many graduates from the full taxonomy of museum studies courses are having to compete in the job market lottery. And it is a lottery. The most basic entry-level positions into the museum world are now getting TONS of applicants. This is a sad state of affairs.”
But this is happening everywhere. Some nonprofit organizations have seen a 1600% jump in applicants in this year alone because of the economy. Financial firms have even spotted increased occurrences of applicants spouting lies on their resume in order to stand out from the still-growing crowd. It’s rough out there right now; it’s rough for all of us.
Moreover, shouldn’t a well qualified and passionate museum studies grad/museum job candidate be excited that more people are looking to spread the missions of museums? Don’t we evolve by integrating new people and new ideas? Though I’m specializing in nonprofit management, I’m always thrilled to learn of corporate leaders making the switch to the nonprofit world! As museums are more and more becoming places for community engagement, doesn’t the argument that museums should only be hiring those with formal training in museum studies seem unnecessarily polarizing between the academic world and the public sphere? Museums need to be able to relate to the community; they need to employ diversity. The Center for the Future of Museums has a good bit about it in the previously mentioned article.
“You want to have an excellent Museum Studies program? Guarantee jobs.” Yes. If every graduate is guaranteed a job, then that program is producing exceptionally creative industry leaders, and everyone might consider enrolling in this miracle program, perhaps even making all other graduate and professional degrees obsolete. I agree with The Center for the Future of Museums in their most recent post: this kind of thinking is less about museum studies programs specifically, and more about a certain conception of or assumption about the U.S. Education system.
Many people might let out a laugh if someone claimed that it was the duty of the institution to make all business degree recipients into CEOs. While that may be the ultimate goal of someone getting their M.B.A. is it the responsibility of the institution to take them all the way there? No. The candidate must display ambition, creative thinking, and nurture experience. Getting a food handler’s permit gives you the opportunity to handle food– not the right to handle it. Degrees do not entitle you to anything. You have to do some work to get there. I like this post on the topic. And a typical museum studies graduate doesn’t seem so angry.
I am delighted by the creative ideas that have come from this discussion. New Curator has great ideas for recruitment, such as turning museum studies programs into headhunters and establishing a “museum milkround.” Some are even talking about museum workers unionizing.
- Maybe the answer involves evolving to meet the changing needs of the community.
This argument traces to the basis for the Center for the Future of Museum’s potential solution to stop hiring museum studies grads. The article begins by discussing the need for diversity within museum studies programs. The post goes on to say, “We are entering an age in which people don’t just want to be lectured to by experts, they want to contribute and curate their own content. In this environment, curators may evolve from being lecturers and authors to being moderators of discussions and editors of content. This requires a different set of soft skills, and calls for a different set of training. Is this something that can be provided at the graduate level in an academic environment, or is it best learned (and consciously taught) on the job? “
These are great thoughts. From focusing on soft skills, incorporating social media in the professional development of museum studies students, and creating/ maintaining strong partnerships with institutions, these programs should be preparing for the future and living in the now.
- Consider wages in regard to the nonprofit environment in which you are working.
I’m not sure how closely museum studies graduates study other kinds of nonprofit and community organizations/ institutions, but the notion that museum studies grads are surprised to learn that they might not be paid much shocked me. I don’t buy it. And if it is true that there’s significant surprise here, I think a simple and positive change-of-mentality might be a solution: Don’t work in a museum for the money. Work in a museum for the mission.
Many museums are public or independent nonprofit organizations, and nonprofit organizations are actively trying to deal with the issue of low wages– especially in regard to some of the newest grads– members of Generation Y, a generation that values work/life balance and often values time and mission over money.
On the issue of wages, New Curator writes that museum studies grads’ work is “something just above slavery. Work hard for an indeterminate amount of time and maybe the industry will maybe reward you. The current model for improving museums through new blood is the same as parents controlling children with Santa.” But wasn’t all of the old blood new blood at one point? And if you’re doing something you love, isn’t it a little bit more worth it?
I’m glad to see the ongoing dialogue about the profession, the industry, and the programs. I’m thrilled to have this peek into the concerns of recent grads and potential museum studies students. I have no doubt that these conversations will lead to an improvement. After all, according to Thomas Edison:
Restlessness and discontent are the first necessities of progress.”
My graduate school application process is over. The tests are long since taken, applications long since sent out, my program selected, and my financial aid secured. I’ve relocated to my new city and I begin student orientation next week.
It’s no surprise that applying to graduate school is a long process, and it involves a lot of big decisions. Should I go back to school? When? What kind of degree should I pursue? Location, costs, funding, rankings, requirements, curriculum– these are all important things to consider when applying to and choosing a graduate school. For a self-starting individual with a keen sense of her professional needs, though, these should be easy questions to answer, right? Well, no. They weren’t.
Here’s insight into the road I traveled during my graduate school application process–the decisions and ideas that stopped me dead in my tracks, challenged my personal and professional goals, and paved the way into a new chapter in my life.
I’ll begin with possibly the most important decision of all:
1) Decide if you want to go to graduate school or not.
Because I’d long since realized that I’d like to go back to school– and for good reasons– this decision didn’t cause me much strife during the application process. My words of wisdom? Just make sure you aren’t thinking about going back to school for the wrong reasons.
The initial kicker for me, aside from wanting to soak up resourceful ideas and be immersed in this specialized community, was the fact that every single higher-level position opening of interest to me required a masters degree or above. I work in nonprofit organizations– museums, mostly– and these environments value education (though I wouldn’t go as far as to argue that one absolutely needs an advanced degree to be a leader in this industry). Whether or not you decide to pursue an advanced degree is entirely up to you. There are several reasons to go back to school, to wait, or not go back at all.
2) Pick a degree.
The fact that this is a staggeringly obvious step in the application process did not make this decision easier for me. Why wasn’t it easy? Because success doesn’t have only one concrete path (and in my opinion, it’s a good thing it doesn’t or we’d have very several similar and rather boring leaders). I knew what I wanted to do long term, I just wasn’t sure how to get there in terms of a graduate degree.
I picked my degree very shortly after deciding that I wanted to go back to school. I strongly considered degrees in public affairs, museum studies, art administration, or even pursuing an MBA. Though, admittedly, museum studies and art administration were initially sexier areas of study for me, I picked public affairs for a few (in my opinion) very good reasons which relate to my own professional goals (which I will significantly over-simplify here). First, I know much more about museums and art administration than I do about public affairs, and public affairs– providing specializations in nonprofit management– would provide me with the skills and government knowledge required to lead public institutions- regardless of if they are science museums or art centers. Second, a Master of Public Administration is considered an advanced professional degree rather than an academic masters degree. And according to this article, the type of degree really does make a difference in compensation over a lifetime. It states that an individual earning a professional degree can expect an average of 4.4 million dollars in his or her lifetime, more than any other type of degree (more than a doctorate)! Could an M.P.A. recipient–with that “P” standing for Public (as in, the public sector) really be comparable in income to the degree’s private sector counterpart– the M.B.A recipient (which is considered a similar type of professional degree)? No. It’s not as comparable as the article suggests. In fact, the average for-profit CEO makes 27 times more money than the average nonprofit CEO. All the same, the more research I did, the more I realized which program was right for my interest in public institutions.
3) Choose programs that fit your needs and apply.
Understandably, the first step in going about this is deciding what your practical needs are and what interests you most about your general degree program. For some people, location is very important because they don’t want to relocate. For others, the ability to have part-time status is important because they’ll be maintaining a full-time job. As a potential full-time student, I cared most about two things: quality of the program and proximity to several high-quality cultural centers.
Identifying these two priorities helped me through the program-weeding and decision-making process, but with so many other factors to consider, they certainly didn’t make the process easy. Remaining true to my desire to attend a high quality program, I studied up on and applied to seven of the top schools on the first page of this list that matched my interests, met my needs, and would be ideal programs for me. I don’t think that rankings are by any means the only important factor in choosing a graduate school. What I mean to say, rather, is that I knew what was important to me and this list provided the framework for who to contact and where to look in order to find an institution that fit my needs. There were several things that contributed to my final decision, but this more specialized list ended up playing a role in the end because I found that after I had narrowed my options to my four favorites, only one of the four was on this list. I choose that school. Lesson: in the end, I reverted back to my initial needs/priorities to make the big decision.
4) Consider location.
Where’s the mecca for your industry, and are you considering relocating to a school in this area? By far the hardest decision that I had to make was choosing between going to graduate school in Washington D.C. or Los Angeles. I was considering L.A. because the programs at USC and UCLA matched my interests and background more closely than similar programs in D.C. So what was the problem? D.C. is a hot-spot of nonprofit activity, and some of my favorite young nonprofit leaders live in this city. Moreover, six of America’s 25 most visited museums– including the top three most visited museums in the country– are in DC. What’s a concerned applicant to do? Do I choose the higher-ranked program with the connections or the city with the connections? Because the museums in L.A. are simply one-of-a-kind, and there’s no denying that there are several kick-butt institutions in D.C, it was a tough choice.
5) Now think about location again.
I had to think about location twice. Once in the decision-making process and again while preparing to take action on my decision. Regardless of where you choose to go, you’ll have to think about how it’s different than the city in which you currently live. I spent the last two years as an advocate of green practices (read: walking) in the not-as-diverse-as-L.A. city of Seattle. I didn’t need a car, and my five years of Spanish speaking skills were slipping away. Embarrassingly, it was not until I moved to Los Angeles that I realized the full extent to which I need a mode of transportation and how much more beneficial I can be to the community if I brush up on my Spanish (seeing as I’m interested in community engagement and would like to participate in a hands-on capacity). Though I wouldn’t have done anything differently, these realizations provided interesting, “Oh yeah, that’s right…” moments in my first few weeks in my new city.
6) Understand that your position within the industry will be different when you’re in school.
Even without having started school, I’ve already learned that my position within the industry is different than it was before I left my full-time job. I was scared of losing my career title, too. Perhaps it was just natural human loss aversion at play. All of my networks now read “student” and it’s a strange adjustment. But to be honest, it’s nice to have a time period in my adult career where I can reflect upon the workings of the industry as a whole. I feel like I’ve gone from artist to art critic. Even in this simple mind-adjustment, I’ve learned quite a bit.
7) Decide how you’ll stay involved in your industry while enrolled in your program.
This makes the list because, as an applicant and now a new student, this is always on my mind. Experience is one of the most important things in a job applicant. Here are ten ways to become a better nonprofit leader, and most of these items can be done by a full-time student in order to remain involved in the industry at large while in school. This is not to mention all of the great communities and organizations that graduate school offers. I haven’t begun school yet and already I’ve been contacted by several university-run organizations within my field of interest. As a full-time student, I may only have about 30 hours a week to work or volunteer. I refuse to let this fact hinder my involvement with the museum community within Los Angeles. I’ll keep you posted on these developments. Also, I’d love to learn your methods for staying on top of your game while in school.
There are a lot of other interesting things to learn from applying to grad school and in preparing for classes. Relearning math for the GREs, tracking several programs at once, talking to recent program graduates, weighing financial aid packages (heck, just applying for financial aid packages) leaving an incredible full-time job, and moving out of a great city were all formative experiences for me.
I’m curious to know if your experiences are/were similar and what advice you would share with individuals currently taking part in the application process. Despite being hammered into the minds of potential applicants, I think this complicated process of life choices must be different for everyone.
10 Reasons to Visit a Museum
July 31, 2009
Sue at the Field Museum in Chicago. Photo from commons.wikimedia.org
Note: Museums, in this article, include art, history, and specialty museums, science centers, zoos, aquariums, botanic gardens, arboretums, nature centers, historic sites and similar institutions.
1. Museums make you feel good.
Times are tight in this economic climate, and it’s often easy to use a museum admission price as an excuse to stay at home. However, a recent study conducted by Harris Interactive finds that people are happier when they spend money on experiences rather than material purchases. According to Leaf Van Boven, an Assistant Professor of Psychology at CU-Boulder, experiences are shown to create more happiness than material goods because they provide positive personal reinterpretations over time. That is, as we revisit the memory of our trip to the museum, we have a tendency to psychologically weed out any negative memories (should there be any). Experiences, such as visiting a museum, can also become a meaningful part of ones identity and contribute to successful social relationships in a manner that material items cannot. So consider foregoing an outing for items that you may not need; going to the museum will make you happier in the long run.
2. Museums make you smarter.
There is no doubt that a primary role of museums is to engage and educate the community. Museum exhibits inspire interest in an area of study, item, time period, or an idea– but there’s more going on in museums in regard to education than one might think. Schools rely heavily on museums to enhance the their curriculum. The New York Museum Education Act, for example, aims to create a partnership between schools and cultural institutions to prepare students for the 21st century. Galleries are becoming classrooms, and not just for kids. Even the museums themselves have interesting histories to inspire and educate visitors. It becomes nearly impossible to exit a museum without having gained any information or insight during your visit.
3. Museums provide an effective way of learning.
Museums are examples of informal learning environments, which means they are devoted primarily to informal education — a lifelong process whereby individuals acquire attitudes, values, skills and knowledge from daily experience and the educative influences and resources in his or her environment. Even outside of museums, informal learning plays a pivotal role in how we take in the world around us. In fact, The U.S. Department of Labor estimates 70% or more of work-related learning occurs outside formal training. A single visit to a museum can expose visitors to in-depth information on a subject, and the nature of the museum environment is one in which you can spend as much or as little time as you like exploring exhibits. The environment allows you to form your own unique experiences and take away information that interests you. Despite the success that museums have already had in educating visitors, there continue to be ongoing discussions among institutions in regard to increasing museums’ ability to connect through informal learning.
4. Museums are community centers.
Museums are a lot more than collections of artifacts; they allow you to meet with neighbors, discuss thoughts and opinions, and become an active part of the community. There are yoga classes at MoMA and Rock Band Summer Camps at the Experience Music Project. The Henry Ford Museum is holding a barbeque, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art conducts art chats, and the Chicago Botanic Garden holds a Farmers Market, book signings, and an annual wine festival. Something is going on everywhere– just pull up the web page of a local museum and see what they have to offer!
5. Museums inspire.
Museums provide inspiration through personal connections with visitors, and not only on-site and through physical community outreach efforts; some even manage to connect through their social networks. These kinds of personal memories created at museums do not expire. Please check out this lovely video on the personal impact of museums, created by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance & the American Association of Museums.
6. Museums help bring change and development to communities.
Research has uncovered that creating community involvement is more about location than the activity at hand, and this kind of location-based learning (like the kind utilized in museums) is a trigger for change and development within the community. As museums are functioning more and more like community centers in providing access to current research and new ideas, they’ve become hot-spots for civic engagement. In museums, even (in some cases, especially) children are actively asked to take part in their communities. The promotion of education and the cultivation of conversation that are taking place in museums across the nation shapes and strengthens our neighborhoods.
7. Museums are a great way to spend time with friends and family.
Museums provide a great excuse to spend time with friends and family in a positive way. Personal connections can be made with museums and also with family members during visits. A day at the museum often translates to a day spent with loved ones as fathers and mothers transform into tour guides, and the environment provides a shared learning experience. Want to take a date to a museum? Here’s how to do it.
8. A museum may be your next community partner or business endeavour.
It takes a lot of employees to help run America’s approximately 17,500 museums and it takes countless businesses and community partners to keep them functioning. Museums need everything from printing services, to video surveillance, to dino-glue– and they are inextricably woven into the web of American government and businesses. If you are not a direct business provider for a museum, you can get some great PR and possibly borrow an artifact or two for a big meeting if you are willing to contribute a monetary gift to a museum. Alternatively, you can follow the lead of these entrepreneurs who are creating their own museums. Or, at the very least, business men and entrepreneurs can trace the development of the National Museum of Entrepreneurship in Denver, and perhaps pay them a visit within the next few years.
9. Museums are free… sometimes.
Several museums nationwide offer free admission during specified hours or days of the week. Visit the website of your favorite museum to see if they feature something like this. Several museums offer free events as well. The Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles offers free fun-filled Sunset Concerts on Thursday nights in the summertime, and Pacific Science Center in Seattle boasts a terrific (and completely free) science cafe, which takes place on the first Tuesday of each month. Bank of America’s program, Museums on Us allows cardholders free admission to 54 museums on the first weekend of each month, and folks living in California, New York or Seattle can check out this website for a list of free museum events in the area.
Also, take a look at museum membership rates. Often, a membership pays itself off in as few as three annual visits to the museum. Often museum memberships come with a few free passes for guests and subscriptions to relevant publications. Museums such as the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County even offer increased opportunity for community engagement with museum membership, highlighting a haunted house, museum scavenger hunts, and other educational activities– along with free annual admission.
10. There is a museum close to you.
According to the American Association of Museums, museums average approximately 865 million visits per year or 2.3 million visits per day. That’s a lot of museum visits! It doesn’t hurt that there are museums in every state. To find one near you, try AAM’s Museum Directory. By conducting a search on the Internet, you may find some rather unusual and interesting museums worth checking out. From the Museum of Wooden Nickles in San Antonio, to the Asphault Museum in Rohnert Park, California, there is certainly something for everyone.
“The Two Cultures” Meet in Museums
July 28, 2009
Photo from blogs.discovermagazine.com
In a way, the modern-day threat of science illiteracy persuaded me to seek out C.P. Snow’s Rede lecture “The Two Cultures.” The lecture was championed during the last event that I coordinated at Pacific Science Center in Seattle: a panel discussion presented by the Northwest Science Writers Association, titled “Dumb, Getting Dumber? The Cost of Scientific Illiteracy.” Snow’s lecture was recommended during the panel as a classic read for anyone seeking to bridge the gap between the arts and sciences.
Here’s a quick (and vastly oversimplified) summary of C.P. Snow’s 1959 lecture: the hostile divide between the cultures of science and the humanities was an increasing problem of the time. According to Snow, the polarization of these cultures leads to intelligent minds (namely, intellectual minds in the humanities), ignoring the fact that the study of science will lead to scientific revolutions which, in turn, increase our global ability to close the gap between the rich and the poor caused by industrialization. In (very loose) sum, the culture divide prohibits those in the arts from aiding scientists in ultimately closing the gap between the rich and the poor. (It’s no wonder that this book was recommended by science researchers!) The gap between the rich and the poor is an area of concern for Snow, and he reports in the successor piece, “A Second Look,” that he initially thought to call his famous lecture, “The Rich and the Poor” instead of “The Two Cultures.”
Although generally outdated in terms of the science verses humanities schism, Snow’s lecture uncovers stereotypes that remain polarizing in our current world. However, it is no longer the divide between the cultures of science and the humanities that demands our urgent attention, but the divide between these intellectual cultures and the everyday man.
Snow’s hope was to make science accessible to those in the humanities because, in his mind and at the time, that group was least open to accepting the credibility of the sciences and scientific research. In Snow’s understanding of the world, the intellectually elite must work together in order to evoke change and make the world a better place for everyone else. Today, education-based institutions are one-upping Snow’s ideas in their attempt to make science research accessible to everyone– not just the literary elite.
C.P. Snow. Photo from physicsworld.com/blog
Museums and education-based institutions have long since begun to break down the walls built up by highly specialized intellectuals prior to the mid twentieth century. C.P. Snow’s lecture, though it does reinforce these walls, began a public debate about highly intellectual cultures. At Pacific Science Center alone, there were several programs and grant-based initiatives aimed toward uncovering ways to make current science research accessible to the public. Many of the special events that I coordinated filled these same initiatives in making science– and the scientists themselves– less scary to those who don’t know anything about carbon dating, tsunami detection, or genetic conflict. “The Two Cultures” paints both scientists and those involved in the humanities in that same, potentially scary light that current institutions are still aiming to shed.
But the problem of polarization still exists, though the players have changed and (from this perspective) both of the intellectual cultures are on the same team. How can we make the ideas of those intellectual cultures accessible to the public?
Here are a few generalizations (stereotypes, perhaps) from Snow’s lecture that museum professionals are, in a sense, tying to tackle head-on:
- Snow claims, “Non-scientists tend to think of scientists as brash and boastful…On the other hand, the scientists believe that the literary intellectuals are lacking in foresight, particularly unconcerned with their brother men, in a deep sense anti-intellectual, anxious to restrict both art and thought to the existential movement.” It is no surprise that this may be the way that the general public views these two highly intellectual cultures as well.
- In regard to his experience as a scientist in the scientific community, Snow explains: “We prided ourselves that the science we were doing could not, in any conceivable circumstances, have any practical use. The more firmly one could make that claim, the better.” I cannot speak as to whether or not this is still true within the field of science, but it is certainly a claim that institutions are tying to smooth out with regard to making science research accessible. It is often easier to make scientific research accessible when there is a way for the public to relate the issue to their everyday lives.
Though hostilities between the intellectual cultures of science and humanities may still exist in the academic realm, I argue that it does not demand as strong a call to action as the gap between these intellectual cultures and the rest of society. Museums and institutions are aiming to cure this polarization, and though the context here my be different, Snow’s original message still holds true: “The polarization is sheer loss to us all. To us as a people, and to our society. It is at the same time practical and intellectual and creative loss.”
I work with zoos, aquariums, and museums in the realm of audience engagement using social technology. I specialize in creative community involvement, new media, nonprofit sector evolution, and the role of Generation Y in the workplace. Learn more about me 
