Bowdoin College Museum of Art Launches Anti-Racism Strategic Plan

In August 2020, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art published its Anti-Racism Action Plan. Connected to the College’s vigorous commitment to Anti-Racism, and growing out of the Museum’s FY 2020-25 Strategic Directions document, which called for it to “enhance the opportunities for intellectual engagement and professional development to serve a diverse community to promote inclusivity,” the Museum designated four primary objectives.  These included a commitment to dedicate ourselves to anti-racism self-education, to develop an Anti-Racism Strategic Plan, to identify measurable goals to hold ourselves accountable for our actions, and, finally to share information about our progress.

 This article is intended both to provide information about the work with which the Museum is engaged, as well as to report the publication of our Anti-Racism Strategic Plan. This plan has grown out of careful work by the Museum staff and others from across the institution, including students, faculty, staff, members of the College administration and the Museum’s Advisory Council. This plan will complement our existing Strategic Directions document. Its goal is to embed within each of the Museum’s key functions, and within it very institutional fabric, a series of specific, measurable objectives that will promote the Museum’s close collaboration with partners on campus. It will focus special attention on the Museum’s exhibitions, collections, academic initiatives and campus engagement, staff and institutional structures, communication and audience, and public programming.

The Anti-Racism Strategic Plan grows out of an ongoing effort to regular staff self-education about anti-racism.  It also demonstrates a commitment to exploring our own institutional history and reexamining every aspect of the work we do as a staff and as part of a community to ensure that the Museum continues to evolve in a fashion that is as welcoming, accessible, and responsive to our many audiences as possible.

We welcome your responses and questions and look forward to seeing you soon at the Museum.

 

Anne Collins Goodyear and Frank Goodyear
Co-Directors, Bowdoin College Museum of Art