By Brad King, Lord Cultural Resources
The title of this article is the first line of the introduction to my New Directions for University Museums, an edited volume just published by Rowman and Littlefield. And it’s true. Wherever you look, university museums are pioneering new ways to interpret collections, to use objects as teaching tools or to deliver innovative programs to engage the communities in which they are located. In former times, many were small, niche organizations, unknown to but a few: today they are more relevant than ever.
The current state of affairs is the result of more than twenty years of effort and activism by university museum leaders and staff from around the world.
Recognizing an existential threat from university administrators who were faced with hard choices during times of austerity in the 1980s and 1990s, a number of leaders in the field led the formation of associations and groups dedicated to organization, advocacy and strategic planning for campus museums, leading to the establishment of UMAC (the University Museums and Collections subcommittee of the International Council of Museums) in 2000.
This collective effort, centred in the UK and Australia with support from Western European and American museums as well, has made a big impact over the years. It doesn’t just make the value that the museums bring to the university much more visible. It also sparks an internal re-visioning of university museum practices and a renewed emphasis on strategic alignment with their host institutions.
University museums are relevant
The result has been increasing relevance and enhanced impact, on several levels. With greater alignment and integration with the universities of which they are a part, campus museums can better take advantage of a number of built-in advantages.
Firstly, being embedded within institutions of higher learning provides ready access to faculty and students. This means that their research and teaching functions will benefit from the presence of intellectual firepower, often in the form of cross-appointed faculty, as well as links to research infrastructure and networks. With the academic pendulum having swung back (to some extent, at least) towards object-based research, new generations of scholars are finding exciting new ways to extract meaning from collections.
For their part, students benefit from exposure to object-based teaching and research as well as helping with operations. However, university museums benefit from their students as well, and not only in terms of volunteer labour. They also benefit from curatorial assistance, museum-based research projects and programs such as student exhibitions.
The second advantage for university museums is that they benefit from the tradition of academic freedom. This means that they are freer to experiment with new – and sometimes challenging or controversial – programs or actions.
There has been a rise in museum-based activism in the field at large. Some are beginning to challenge their visitors to make a difference in response to various social, political or environmental issues. But the tradition of academic freedom and experimentation enables university museums to “push the envelope” even further. They can use the power of collections-based research to develop ways forward in the fight against climate change, social injustice or any number of large concerns.
With their proximity to faculty researchers and students, this supercharges their ability to make a measurable difference in solving real world problems.
Core programs
With all of this activity, university museums are making a strong case for status as core university programs to a greater degree than has previously been the case.
This is important. For, as universities (especially in North America) grapple with declining enrollments and other issues that affect fiscal health, they continue to look for peripheral or non-essential programs to cut. With closer alignment to the host’s strategic goals, they are greater contributors to the university’s “triple mission” than ever before – teaching, research and social infrastructure building. They are making a strong case for their value as vital core programs.
This is good news, not only for the museums themselves but for their campus and local communities. And it is good news for society at large, which benefits as they continue to bring about positive change in new and sometimes unexpected ways.
