A MUSEUMS AND CHANGE session in collaboration with Museums as Progress.
This session is for museum professionals wrestling with the tension between expertise and impact. You’ll hear from MaP community members at two institutions testing this in real time — one repositioning a regional history museum’s value to provincial government stakeholders, the other integrating audience-focused practices across departments at a university art museum.
Date: Thursday, November 13, 2025
Time: 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. CT
Location: Online
More from MaP:
People come to museums to relax, connect with others, discover something about themselves — and, yes, sometimes learn something new along the way or “engage” with the museum — but for most people, most of the time, the goals are manifold and your expertise matters only to the extent that it helps them achieve what they’re actually trying to accomplish.
This creates an uncomfortable question: Can you use your expertise to serve what people are actually trying to achieve?
The paradox is that the more we invest in our expertise, the easier it is for our expertise to become the main character — the star of the show — ultimately undermining the value and potential of our work and the institution as a whole.
Who this is for
- You’re passionate about your discipline but wondering if that passion is actually serving your community.
- You’re being asked to justify institutional value in ways that your traditional expertise doesn’t answer.
- You recognize that people use your museum for reasons you don’t fully understand — and you’re not sure how to learn what those reasons are.
- You’re curious whether the outcomes you’ve been trained to care about actually matter to the people whose support your institution needs.
Find out more at the registration link below.
