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⇒News from the NAEA Museum Education Division - February 2012
Partnerships and Programs
Queensborough Community College has been awarded an IMLS National Leadership Grant to disseminate CALTA21, a model initiative designed to engage and empower adult immigrant audiences and their families. The program creates novel partnerships between community colleges and art museums to teach English language and critical thinking skills through the use of art, to assist immigrants and their families access cultural institutions, and to use art museums as learning environments for adult English language learners and their families.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston received a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to launch a middle school initiative which will result in an interdisciplinary curriculum for 7th and 8th grade teachers. The project will complement the MFAH’s current Learning Through Art program, an interdisciplinary curriculum and workshop series for elementary teachers. The MFA, Houston also received a grant from the IMLS and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to build a 21st Century teen learning labs designed to help young people move beyond consuming content to making and creating it.
Last year, The Jewish Museum in New York City began a partnership with a community center in Queens called the Selfhelp Center. They collaborated on a program to bring art museum exhibitions to homebound senior citizens via computers (and webcams) installed by Selfhelp in the clients' homes. So far, they have run four interactive classes which have been immensely satisfying for both the students (one of them is 100 years old!) and the educators. The educator leads discussions about works of art on view at the Museum and the students share their observations and reactions. The Jewish Museum has been able establish a wonderful rapport with people that would otherwise be quite isolated from the rest of their community.
The Saint Louis Art Museum hosted the National Docent Symposium from October 1-5, bringing together more than 400 docents and museum staff from 37 states and 4 Canadian provinces as well as 1 representative from Korea. Featured speakers included Michael Cassin (Clark Art Institute) and Elizabeth Semmelhack (Bata Shoe Museum) with a closing discussion about the role of docents in the 21st century led by Daniel Reich (St. Louis Holocaust Museum) and Michael Murawski (Saint Louis Art Museum).
Expansions and New Buildings
On October 15, 2011, the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University officially opened its new wing. The extension will help the museum better serve the public and provide broader access of the collections. The addition features new education offices, studio workshop, auditorium, additional classrooms, gallery, library, lobby for groups visiting the Museum, and collection storage. The Museum has also expanded and renovated the Asian art galleries, and added a Visible Storage Study Center featuring one thousand works of art previously not on display from the African, pre-Columbian, Asian, and decorative arts collections. Information about the works of art will be delivered on an iPod Touch guide and new web site, funded by an IMLS grant.
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art opened in Bentonville, Arkansas on November 11, 2011. Their goal is to explore the unfolding story of America by actively collecting, interpreting, and preserving works that illuminate our heritages and artistic possibilities.
Honors & Recognitions
Aurelia Gomez, Director of Education at the Museum of International Folk Art, was named the New Mexico Museum Educator of the Year by the New Mexico Art Education Association. She was honored at the annual NM conference in Santa Fe, on November 4 & 5, 2011.
SummerVision DC facilitators, Renee Sandell and Carole Henry (HE Division), gratefully recognize the museum educators who helped inspire the SVDC 2011 Professional Learning Community (PLC) that deepened connections among diverse NAEA Division members. This experience led the PLC to the National Gallery of Art and Sculpture Garden (Elisa Patterson, Zev Slurzberg, Lorena Baines, Heidi Hinish), Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (Elizabeth Benskin), National Museum of the American Indian (Megan Burnes), The National Museum of Women in the Arts (Deborah Gaston, Elizabeth Keaney, Anna Allegro), The Philips Collection (Paul Ruther, Margaret Collerd), Smithsonian American Art Museum (Suzannah Niepold), National Portrait Gallery (Briana Zavadil White) and Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Kristy Maruca), where museum educators modeled a wide range of interpretive approaches to works of art in their collections.
Stacy Fuller, Director of Education at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art & 2011 Western Museum Education Art Educator Award Recipient, is the guest author for NAEA's Monthly Mentor blog for February.
Other News
The Family Learning in Interactive Galleries (FLING) website presents the results of an innovative research project that examined families’value and use of interactive galleries in art museums and their motivations for visiting the spaces. The project studied three southeast art museums with interactive spaces and their visitors: Frist Center for the Visual Arts (Nashville), High Museum of Art (Atlanta), and the Speed Art Museum (Louisville) The research component was directed by The Institute of Learning Innovation and Audience Focus. The website includes a full literature review, study description, study protocols, and summary reports, video tours of the three family spaces. Check it out at www.familiesinartmuseums.org.
Upon completion of American Associations of Museums accreditation, the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia has undergone a name change. The Museum now identifies itself as the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). The new name comes with a brand new look and you can view the MOCA’s new website, which was donated by BCF in Virginia Beach, at www.VirginiaMOCA.org.
⇒ NAEA Museum Education Division - 26th Annual Preconference
Art Museum Learning in the Digital Age
Wednesday, February 29, 2012 | 8:30am-5:15pm
Brochure
| SOLD OUT
⇒ Keynote for NAEA Museum Division Awards Luncheon
2011 NAEA National Convention, Seattle, Washington, March 18, 2011
"Art Museums and 21st Century Skills"
Marsha L. Semmel, Deputy Director for Museums and Director for Strategic Partnerships
Institute of Museum and Library Services
Presentation Powerpoint 
⇒ NAEA MUSEUM RESOURCES
Art museums provide a wide array of web-based resources for K-12 teachers. These include lesson plans, timelines, searchable databases, image banks, video clips of artists and scholars speaking about works of art, access to behind the scenes images of exhibition installations, podcasts of lectures, interactive games, special teacher blogs, free subscriptions to e-resources, and much more.
Click here for a list of resources from forty-five art museums across the country, organized alphabetically by museum. Additional museum listings will be added periodically.
⇒ How NCLB has affected Museums and Galleries
⇒ Cultural Activities are Good for Your Health
CONTACT
Anne M. Manning
Deputy Director for Education
The Baltimore Museum of Art
10 Art Museum Drive
Baltimore, MD 21218
443-573-1817
amanning@artbma.org