Gunston Hall, Lorton, Virginia.

In March, the Historic House Museum Consortium of Washington, DC will be examining how historic house museums are adapting to the future at its annual Historic House Museum Symposium.  Presented alongside the 2014 Virginia Association of Museums conference, the symposium will feature three speakers, a boxed lunch, and a special tour of Gunston Hall on Saturday, March 15, 2014 from 9 am to 3 pm at George Mason’s Gunston Hall in Lorton, Virginia.  Registration is limited and is $15 per person.

Speakers include

• Max van Balgooy, President, Engaging Places, LLC on What You Ought to Know About OT.  Historic house museums face numerous challenges but figuring out which ones are serious or benign, urgent or important, temporary or long-term, isn’t easy. I’ll present my analysis of the most important Opportunities and Threats facing historic sites in America based on the latest social and economic research, with a discussion on how they may relate to house museums in Virginia.
• Jana Shafagoj, Director of Preservation, Morven Park on Building the Future: Using Historic Structures in Educational Programming.  Jana will discuss how house museums can use their largest artifact to offer students a new perspective on the uses of science, math and technology in everyday life. By analyzing architecture and historic structures students can participate in exercises that meet multiple STEM program requirements. See how these programs can help you appeal to a broader range of students, as well as help your educational programming become more attractive to grant makers.
• Ken Turino, Manager of Community Engagement and Exhibitions, Historic New England on Reinventing the Historic House Museum.  Historic sites are looking for creative and sustainable ways to make themselves relevant to their communities. What is very exciting now is that many sites have risen to this challenge using different models and ways of interpreting to look beyond traditional models. Turino will examine how historic houses have engaged with their communities and implemented creative forms of interpretation and programming to become more sustainable.