The Campus Art Museum - Samuel H. Kress Foundation

Concluding Thoughts
Duncan Cameron (1971/2004, 69) in The Museum: A Temple or a Forum, states that
many museums cannot decide whether they want to remain a temple or become a
forum for “confrontation and experimentation.” Temple and forum were not metaphors
generally used by study participants. They are useful, however, for describing how,
increasingly, the perception and role of the campus art museum is changing. As a
temple, the museum holds precious gems and people make pilgrimages to stand
before great works of art. As a forum, the museum is a catalyst for various kinds of
interactions that might be more like a laboratory or even a portal for the mixing of
peoples and ideas. The thriving campus art museum is one that embraces its role as
facilitator for all kinds of dialogues, research, performances, exhibits, and experiences.
It welcomes diverse and interdisciplinary perspectives. It sees its role as serving a
population broader than the arts community and it seeks to make a difference not
only in the academic lives of students and faculty but also in their and others’ day-today
lives. It also considers how the museum itself is part of the broader culture of the
campus and local community and seeks to be a leader and model in local initiatives.
The thriving campus art museum chooses directors with vision and energy.
The director and staff work at developing positive relationships with institutional
administrators, potential donors, and the wider community. They tend to create
national boards that assist through advice, connections, and donations. In return,
campus administrators and legislatures understand the value of the campus art
museum as a site of teaching and learning, research and scholarship, and creativity
and experiences that goes well beyond valuable pictures on a wall. As museum
directors across the country are quick to point out, raising funds to help support
museum activities is part of their work. A balance must be reached, however,
between support by the parent organization and revenue raised by the museum, so
that the director and staff can put time and energy into the creative activities for
which they are well-trained and positioned.
This study of exemplary campus art museums suggests that it is possible
for a campus art museum to be well-integrated into a college or university. The
kinds of things that make a difference include visionary leadership and talented
staff who reach out across the disciplines; a campus-wide history and culture of
supporting the arts; a campus-wide context of commitment to interdisciplinary
education and research; and ability to obtain resources to carry out the museum’s
vision. Similarly, in Making Museums Matter, Stephen Weil (2002, 63) states that, “the
things that make a museum good are its purpose to make a positive difference in
the quality of people’s lives, its command of resources adequate to that purpose, and
its possession of a leadership determined to ensure that those resources are being
directed and effectively used toward that end.” Although availability of sufficient
resources is problematic for several of the museums in the study, all are seeking to
make a difference in the quality of people’s lives and, from the perspectives of those
interviewed, are succeeding. A curator describes the work in which the museum staff
and others from across the campus are engaged as one of “rethinking what a museum
is, what is should be, and what it can be.” Through work like this, some campus art
museums are mattering, to quote Weil (2002, 74) again, in “many marvelous ways.”
Concluding Thoughts
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