Issue 17 Letter From the Editor: The Action Plan for Future Art Museum Educators
Daniela Fifi, Ed.D., Callie Smith, Ph.D., Kelly McKay, Ph.D. Editorial Board
This issue of Viewfinder responds to Pablo Helguera’s (2021) Letter to a Future Arts Educator, where he argues for a course of action for future art museum educators and contemplates the fate of museum education departments within a system of institutions that revere traditions steeped in romanticism and white supremacy.
The articles in this issue are pertinent as recent debates in museum education focus on the museum’s social obligation to its communities and workers. The papers in this issue reimagine the museum and its accompanying educational activities as potential sites for learning, sharing, engagement, and transformation.
In their paper, Shared Authority as Pedagogy and Practice, Jessica Fuentes (Executive Director at Kinfolk House) and Alli Rogers Andreen (Manager of Family Programs at The Amon Carter Museum) investigate museum education case studies as examples of shared authority in action and reflect on their application outside of museum programs.
In Reconceptualizing Museum Educator Evaluations: Interrogating White Supremacy Characteristics in Teaching Observations, written by Quána Madison (Senior Educator and Community Engagement Specialist at Clyfford Museum) and Emily Bullard (Assistant Director of School and Teacher Programs at the Clyfford Still Museum), the authors identify and address the systemic ways that institutional structures advance and protect white supremacy, and counteract these narratives through innovative approaches to museum educator evaluations at the Clyfford Still Museum.
Finally, in their article, Does the museum change, or does our perception of the museum change?, the authors, Dr. Susan McCullough (Program Director of Art Education at Queens College of the City University of New York) and Maria Pio (Director of Education and Administration at Godwin-Ternbach Museum) discuss the potential for subverting white-dominant paradigms in museums by sharing museum pedagogy with classroom teachers and providing them with tools commonly used by museum educators to engage with and critique the museum.
Editorial Board
Dr. Daniela Fifi, Ed. D. (she/her) is an art educator and curator who has worked in museums and galleries in the Caribbean and The United States. She is a doctoral graduate in Art and Art Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute, New York, and a Master of Arts in Art Gallery and Museum Studies from the University of Manchester, UK. Her doctoral research focuses on Caribbean art and intercultural programming. In her spare time, Daniela enjoys listening to music and being in nature.
Callie Smith, Ph.D (she/her/hers) is a museum educator and writer based in Louisiana. She earned her doctorate in English from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in May 2023. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Central Arkansas, and a BA in English Secondary Education from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Her poems have been published by Notre Dame Review, Grist, RHINO, Sugar House Review, Blue Earth Review, Quarterly West, and Santa Clara Review, among others. She is a podcast host for the Animal Studies Channel of the New Books Network.
Kelly McKay, Ph.D (she/they) is an arts educator, administrator, and researcher with a focus on visual arts, performance, and movement. Kelly currently serves as Academic Programs Manager at the Boca Raton Museum of Art and previously held roles as Educator and Lead Educator at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Kelly holds a MA in Performance Studies and a PhD in Theatre Historiography. Kelly is also a musician, performer, and very amateur bird-watcher.
