Many students ask, "what is an average work day like for a collections manager, curator, museum director" and the list goes on. To answer those questions, we are launching a new series, in which Student Affairs Chair Jessie Swigger will interview folks from across the field and ask them to describe their work and offer suggestions and ideas for aspiring museum professionals. Our first episode features our very own NCMC Board President Christian Edwards who describes her work as Assistant Keeper at the University of North Carolina Wilson Library's North Carolina Collection Gallery. We hope you enjoy it!

CONGRATULATIONS!

North Carolina had two award winners, the Asheville Art Museum (Bronze in the Digital Education Category, Silver in the Media Production Category and Gold in the Student Projects Category)  and the Gregg Museum of Art and Design at NC State (Gold in the Digital Marketing Category). 

The SEMC Technology Competition was established to recognize and reward excellence in the use of technology by southeastern museums. The competition encourages innovation, effective design, accessibility, creativity and pride of work, and recognition of institutional identity. Winning entries will be highlighted in a Virtual Technology Showcase at the SEMC2021 Annual Meeting (October 25-27) in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and featured in the Fall 2021 edition of INSIDE SEMC. 

Source: https://www.semcdirect.net/technology

FY 2022 OMS Funding Opportunities.pdf

https://artsednc.org/

Core Sound.pdf

A Word From Our President

Dear colleagues and friends,

What a fantastic spring it has been across North Carolina! Beautiful warm days with just enough cool snaps that make you wonder if you took the heavy quilt off your bed just a bit too early. Maybe it is that I somehow missed last spring while my life shifted from one of scheduled chaos to the uncertainty we were all thrust into, but this spring seems more vibrant, more refreshing, and more hopeful.  

Much like spring's budding life after the gray dormant winter, museums are buzzing with the excitement after our dormant year of few visitors and small social bubbles.   As we continue to open further and welcome more visitors to our museums and sites, the anticipation is undeniable. The many programs and activities thought out over the past year are being implemented. Exhibit schedules are getting back on track.  Museums are opening and you and your museum colleagues are there to engage, educate, and inspire visitors eager to connect.  

As you rise to meet this new time in your professional life, know that North Carolina Museums Council is here to help. Make sure to take advantage of the NCMC forum in our members-only section on our website to share ideas, ask questions, and brainstorm ideas with colleagues. Help get the word out about your new programs or tours throughout our various social media platforms. Keep an eye out for announcements of continued virtual networking and training opportunities that we will continue to host this year. NCMC is excited to keep supporting our museum community and I’m excited to be working with such a dedicated and enthusiastic group of professionals who are committed to ‘creating better museums one professional at a time’ through their work with the NCMC Board. Thank you for all you do and, please, never hesitate to reach out and to any of us. 

Kindly,

Christian Edwards

NCMC President

NCMC 2020 Award Recipients Press Release.pdf

Greetings!

Spring is almost here and for us on the board it is a busy time as we prepare for the annual conference. This year’s conference will take on a different feel as we pivot towards an all-virtual format for our 2021 gathering. We have some great sessions planned, speakers and activities to get you engaged, opportunities to network with your fellow museum professionals and a chance to learn from our lineup of fantastic leaders in the museum field. Adrienne Nirdé, Professional Development Chair, and Felicia Knise Ingram, Assistant Professional Development Chair have done a great job in lining up these outstanding sessions. I also want to thank Alicyn Wiedrich, Annual Meetings Chair, and Liz Lord, Conference Administrator for pulling together the conference logistics. Lastly, I wanted to thank Randy Holmes and Steven Blashfield of Glavé and Holmes for their continued support of NCMC. Without great corporate partners such as Glavé and Holmes, we could not bring you this conference and these great sessions. 

If you have not registered yet, it is not too late. We have reduced the cost of the conference this year and hopefully this will make it affordable for you to attend. Please remember that you must be a member to register. Not a member yet, no problem! You can easily join your statewide museum association by visiting http://www.ncmuseums.org/. After joining be sure to hop over to http://www.ncmuseums.org/registration and get registered. It is fast and super easy!

We hope to “return to normal” in 2022 with an in-person event that will be held in Rocky Mount, NC. The Local Arrangements Committee there has been fantastic to work with and they have been willing to assist in any way possible to get our conference back in Rocky Mount for 2022.

Lastly, this will be my last newsletter as your President. Beginning April 1, I will transition over to the Past President chair. I will still be on the board and I will be taking on a new project that I hope everyone will be excited about and one that I hope will make NCMC stand out. More details will follow in the coming months. Christian Edwards, current Vice-President, will take over as your President. Christian has some exciting ideas and a contagious energy that will propel NCMC forward. It has been a real honor to serve as your President and if I can ever be of service, please reach out to me through our website at www.ncmuseums.org. Have a great spring and I look forward to seeing you all online!

Yours in museums,

Scott Warren

Exhibiting Inclusion: An Examination of Race, Ethnicity, and Museum Participation

Alexandra Olivares & Jaclyn Piatak

This article offers data demonstrating that representation is more important than free admission when trying to reach diverse audiences.

See the full article here: Olivares-Piatak2021_Article_ExhibitingInclusionAnExaminati.pdf

Celebrate Women in Science

Karl McKinnon

According to Ishani Singh’s article, By the Numbers: Women in STEM: What do the statistics reveal about ongoing gender disparities? (Yale Scientific, November 27, 2020) by the time children reach middle school more than twice as many boys as girls will say they are planning on being employed in a science, math, or engineering related job.

Even more distressing is the statistic that once young women enter college and complete their first year of undergraduate classes in science and engineering, 49.2 percent of them will switch to a non-STEM major. Only 32.5 percent of men will change their science and engineering to a non-STEM major after their first year.

Nationally it is reported that women make up 57.3 percent of bachelor degree recipients with STEM bachelor degrees  making up only 38.6 percent of those degrees. Factor in underrepresented minority women and we find that they earn only 16.6 percent of undergraduate degrees with 9.16 percent of those degrees being in science and engineering.

As the leaky pipeline progresses the outcome is that women only represent 29 percent of the STEM workforce. At our institutions of higher learning women only make up 34.5 percent of faculty (Black women only 1.5 percent).

Women comprise three-quarters of health care practitioners and technicians, the largest occupational cluster classified as STEM, with 9.0 million workers – 6.7 million of whom are women.

 The Pew Research Center reports in, Seven Facts about the STEM Workforce, that non-STEM workers with a Master’s Degree earn 26 percent less that STEM workers. A typical full-time STEM worker earns $54,745 while a similarly educated non-STEM worker earns $40,505.

To say we need to encourage young girls to become interested in science and to become scientists is a tremendous understatement. As members of the informal and formal science platform we can take an active role in promoting science and technology with our female guests and program participants.

To aide us in this pursuit we can use resources such as 40 Important STEM Resources For Womenproduced by TeachThought. Another contemporary and timely collection of video resources discussing the fight against COVID-19 has been produced by boClips to celebrate International Day of Women and Girls in Science(February 11, 2021). These resources represent a great taking off point for future inquiry and thought. Who knows? Maybe a young lady in one of your programs could be the scientist that crushes the next pandemic.