As with many Volunteer Programs, volunteerism at Filoli began in support of a fledgling organization in 1975. Initially a separate nonprofit, Friends of Filoli was created with the purpose of fundraising and other support, but was dissolved in 1989 as it was not self-sufficient. The leadership structure, however, remained and later merged with the…

In this essay the author recalls the process of organizing and interpreting an exhibition of art and language made in response to a catastrophic fire that devastated California's Sonoma and Napa counties in late 2017. The Sonoma Valley Museum of Art invited a group of artists and writers to be part of its small exhibition planning team to help…

The founder of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum (Tenement Museum) explains how her realization that history could be used as a tool for social change inspired the creation of a museum of immigrant life that would be transformative for visitors. She hoped that by placing them in the shoes of immigrants much like their own forebearers, visitors…

The dual pandemic that started in 2020, COVID-19 and events revealing systemic racism, has increased awareness about violence against Asian American and Pacific Islander communities across the United States. This article describes how the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, a "museum without walls," collaborated with a group of…

The recent popularity of museum mash-ups exemplifies fatigue, if not dissatisfaction with "traditional" conversation, discussion, and dialogue-based interpretation that has become standard for many art museum educators. This article looks back at the late 1960s and early 1970s when a similar dissatisfaction with standard approaches…

In 2015 "Mimi's Family: Photographs by Matthew Clowney" opened to the public at Boston Children's Museum. The first of its kind, this groundbreaking exhibit told the story of a family with a transgender grandparent through a series of large, color photographs. This case study describes the process, challenges, and outcomes of creating…

In the summer of 2016, the Staten Island Museum was challenged with developing an audience for its new building and location. With exhibitions that change infrequently, programs became the way guests accessed museum resources. Museum staff reinvented the personality of museum programming while putting its new location "on the map." The…

The Palo Alto Art Center sought a solution to the challenge that loyal family audiences, visiting weekly for art studio classes, rarely visit the contemporary art exhibition galleries. This article relates the experience of using the human-centered design process, often called Design Thinking, as the methodology to create a solution for family…

Working with children under five years old and the adults that accompany them is a rapidly growing area within the museum and wider cultural sector, with important emphasis being placed on early learning in both the United Kingdom and United States. For history museums in particular, early learning offers a unique set of questions and challenges,…

This article describes the development and implementation of a program at the Jewish Museum in Vienna, "Einfach so? So Einfach" (It's that easy? Yes!), in which students are asked to photograph works that interest them, either because they like the works or because they do not. The works selected by the students make up the discussion…

This article demonstrates how a teaching case study approach can benefit museum studies courses. It takes as its focus the widely reported rescue of a boys' football team from a flooded cave in Thailand (2018). The success of this multinational effort led to immediate calls for the establishment of a "living museum" dedicated to…

In the 1990s, a handful of arts institutions made an unprecedented effort to engage young people through intensive programming geared directly at adolescent audiences--teen councils and apprenticeships sprouted up across the country and sought to welcome and empower teens within the museum. The Whitney Museum of American Art is currently leading a…

Mass Audubon recognized that climate change was significantly impacting bird species distribution and seasonality. Unsure of how and when to engage visitors to their network of wildlife sanctuaries on the topic of climate change, its educators turned to the National Network of Ocean and Climate Change Interpreters' Study Circle (NNOCCI). Through…

In 1995 the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Education Department embarked on an experiment to see how videoconferencing technology could benefit educational programming. Since then it has blossomed into a robust full-time program that has become an important asset to both the Education Department and the museum as a whole. This article describes the…

Providing training for pre-service teachers at historic sites necessitates a reorientation for historic site-based teacher education programs away from strict content learning towards programs that emphasize the modeling of disciplinary problem solving and transfer learning. Outlined here is a History Lab model for teacher education that uses the…