Description
Summary: The mission of the Center for Curatorial Leadership (CCL), founded in 2008, is to train museum curators for leadership positions in the museum field. Each year a class of fellows is offered a curriculum which blends theory and practice: they learn advanced management skills from Columbia Business School professors; engage with cultural and civic leaders to learn real-world applications; and are paired with directors around the world who act as mentors. To provide a foundation for self-awareness and socially engaged leadership, they receive additional training in moral leadership.
Finding itself increasingly aware of the lack of diversity among its fellows, in 2012 CCL developed a Diversity Mentoring Initiative to effectively foster more representationally diverse museums by addressing the so-called “pipeline problem,” whereby a scarcity of new talent prevents expanding inclusive representation even when desired. Each year, CCL fellows are tasked with creating and implementing diversity mentorship projects at their home museum to engage individuals from communities currently underrepresented on the staff. This inevitably includes critical reflection on their own practice and that of their institutions, and navigation of challenges ranging from effective communication to logistics. Since 2012, CCL fellows have created 70 programs, each of which has benefitted multiple audiences and several of which are ongoing.
CCL now seeks to strengthen the Diversity Mentoring Initiative in response to a 2017 evaluation that underlined the need for more structured training and support. They propose a three-pronged effort that would include new diversity-related instruction, increased support for individual mentoring projects, and publication of a field-wide resource.
The additional course-work, to be offered during the CCL’s January Intensive, would include an implicit bias workshop and instruction in program design and sustainability. Support for the implementation period would include regular check-ins and problem-solving sessions. CCL proposes to engage a partner organization and/or advisors for these interactions. The Diversity Mentoring Initiative publication, the second offering in a digital publication series launched by CCL in 2017, would be coordinated by 2017 fellows Thomas J. Lax, Associate Curator at MoMA, and Elyse Gonzales, Assistant Director at the Art, Design & Architecture Museum, UC Santa Barbara.
The enhancement of CCL’s current Diversity Mentoring Initiative will strengthen the organization’s efforts to foster museum leadership that is representationally diverse and actively committed to inclusive museum practice. Support of this project would allow the Luce Foundation’s American Art Program to work directly on mission by fostering a critical aspect of leadership in the arts.
The proposed grant would support instruction and consultant fees, author honoraria, and travel expenses. CCL intends to continue the core components of the program beyond the June 2018–June 2021 grant period and is committed to allocating general operating funds to support them.
Recommendation: That the Directors of the Henry Luce Foundation approve a three-year grant of $75,000 to the Center for Curatorial Leadership to support the Diversity Mentoring Initiative.
