Abstract
According to Singal (2023), guest NY Times essayist, the DEI Industry exploded in 2020 with an estimated $3.4 billion in revenue. One can easily draw connections to this phenomenon and the social unrest inspired by the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd while the world made sense of a deadly pandemic (Cuyler, 2022; Cuyler et al. 2022). Organizations assume that DEI consultants use “proven” approaches to yield results. But, the literature on evidence-based approaches to enable the changes needed to foster access, diversity, equity, and inclusion (ADEI) remains under developed at best. As a consultant, I partner with museums, among other types of cultural organizations, to maximize their performance and community relevance through ADEI. In my work, I have facilitated and designed community engagement education to deepen cultural organizations’ understanding of and relationships with their communities. My lesson plans have integrated Borwick’s (2012) community IQ assessment, as well as other opportunities for my clients to do a deep dive into learning about the communities in which they exist. I have also incorporated discussions of their findings from the assessment and a cross departmental exercise to empower clients to brainstorm about how to engage their next community partners. But, does it work? In this paper, I use autoethnography reflexively to interrogate my teaching practices regarding community engagement in a museum to explore the research question, to what extent did an ADEI consultant’s facilitated education empower a museum in the midwestern US to change and embrace community engagement?
Presenters
Antonio C. CuylerProfessor of Music in Entrepreneurship and Leadership, University of Michigan, Michigan, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2023 Special Focus—Museum Transformations: Pathways to Community Engagement
KEYWORDS
Access, Change Management, Community Engagement, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Museums
