Category Archives: Training

Reimagining the Historic House Museum coming to Nashville in July

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Ken Turino introducing the Reimagining House Museum workshop at Bayou Bend, Houston, 2025.

In July, Ken Turino and I will be leading the one-day Reimagining the Historic House Museum workshop on Friday, July 10, 2026, at Belle Meade Historic Site & Winery in Nashville, Tennessee. It’s designed specifically for people working at house museums and historic sites who are wrestling with familiar questions: How do we refresh our programs? Attract new audiences? And build a more sustainable future without losing what makes our site special? Registration is $225 for AASLH members and $350 for nonmembers.

The day combines current social and economic research with practical tools drawn from nonprofit management and business strategy. Participants conduct a holistic assessment of public programs, explore examples of sites that are successfully reinventing themselves, and take part in a facilitated brainstorming session that puts new ideas into practice using a real house museum as a case study.

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The Question Most Students Overlook About Museum Internships

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A collage of images showing students in museums.

Most students search for internships by looking for a museum.
Instead they should be looking for a mentor.

In the Museum Studies Program at George Washington University, I advise about 40 students every year, which includes a required internship. Students are excited to get into the field, so they want to obtain their internship as quickly as possible. However, in the process, they often overlook the most important aspect.

An internship doesn’t train you — a supervisor does. And in today’s museum workforce, those are no longer automatically the same thing. Many organizations, especially small historical societies and local museums, operate with very lean staffing and competing demands. A capable staff member may be handling exhibits, collections, programs, and fundraising at the same time. That doesn’t make them unprofessional. But it may mean they lack the time, structure, or disciplinary depth to train a graduate-level emerging professional.

You can have a legitimate museum and still receive a volunteer experience instead of a professional one. The difference is supervision.

Reframe the Goal

The internship is not just a graduation requirement. It is your first professional apprenticeship—a chance to build competencies and networks, not just accumulate hours. Focus on what you need to learn and how it supports your career goals. Think of it as work experience with training wheels. Consider how this step leads to the next one.

The Supervisor Test

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How Emerging Museum Professionals View Community Engagement in Museums

Learning about the vision and resources of the GW Museum.

End-of-semester reflections often confirm what instructors suspect but rarely see so clearly. Read together, the reflections from my course CMST 6703: Museums and Community Engagement at George Washington University offer a useful window into how emerging museum professionals are learning to connect the theory of community engagement with its day-to-day practice. For museum leaders and practitioners, the themes echo many of the field’s ongoing debates about values, capacity, and impact.

One of the strongest patterns was a shift in how students understand community engagement. Early in the semester, many approached engagement as something measurable through attendance, participation counts, or one-off programs. By the end, their reflections show a more nuanced understanding: engagement as a relational practice grounded in mission, trust, reciprocity, and long-term stewardship. This mirrors core engagement theory, which emphasizes relationships over transactions and positions engagement as an ongoing organizational practice rather than a discrete activity.

Students also demonstrated increasing comfort applying theoretical frameworks to real institutional contexts. They reflected on analyzing museums through mission, governance, resources, and capacity—recognizing that engagement strategies cannot be separated from how an organization actually functions. The shared GW Museum case study, while initially frustrating, became a practical laboratory for testing theory against reality. Students noted that working within a single, constrained case forced them to confront tradeoffs, power dynamics, and feasibility—key elements often glossed over in more idealized engagement models.

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What Emerging Museum Managers Are Learning—and Why It Matters to the Field

Discussing current management issues in museums.

Graduate students recently finishing an introductory course in museum management with me at George Washington University offered useful insights to the field. Their end-of-semester reflections reveal where emerging professionals are gaining traction, where they’re still uncertain, and what this means for museums and nonprofits navigating an increasingly complex landscape.

What’s clicking

A clear shift is underway in how new professionals understand museums. Rather than seeing them as a set of departments or activities, students are beginning to read museums as systems: mission, governance, finances, staffing, and programs working together—or, sometimes, at cross-purposes. Core documents like budgets, Form 990s, strategic plans, and bylaws are no longer viewed as bureaucratic paperwork, but as evidence of priorities, capacity, and risk.

Equally important, many students are learning that management is less about finding the “right” answer and more about making defensible decisions with imperfect information. That realization—often uncomfortable—is a sign of professional formation. They are also becoming more fluent in professional communication: writing memos for decision-makers, structuring findings, and using standards as tools rather than checklists.

Where the strain shows

The productive strain is familiar to anyone who has worked in museums. Students struggled most when ideals collided with constraints—especially around finances, staffing, and governance. They felt the tension between mission-driven aspirations and organizational realities. That’s not a weakness; it’s the work.

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New Guide: Writing Professional Memos for Museum Work

Over the years, I’ve noticed something consistent in my museum management courses: graduate students are well-prepared to write academic papers, but many struggle when asked to write professional memos—the format that museum directors, CEOs, and board members actually read.

This isn’t a flaw in their abilities; it’s a mismatch between what universities traditionally teach and what museums need. Academic writing is designed to demonstrate thinking. Managerial writing is designed to support decisions.

In the museum field, we write memos all the time—to recommend actions, summarize findings, or prepare leaders for decisions. That’s why many of the assignments in my courses require students to write to a real audience: a museum director, board chair, or CEO. Students practice being clear, concise, and actionable—skills that will serve them throughout their careers.

At recent professional conferences, I’ve also heard colleagues say that emerging professionals often struggle with executive communication. They know their subject matter, but don’t always know how to structure recommendations for decision-makers. Supervisors want to help, but explaining “how to write a memo” can be surprisingly difficult without concrete models.

For years, I’ve used the FranklinCovey Style Guide for Business and Technical Communication as the foundation (available free online). It offers excellent standards and a managerial memo structure that aligns beautifully with museum leadership needs.

Still, many students found it challenging because executive writing feels so different from college writing. So I created a new two-page memo about memos: “Writing Professional Memos in Managerial Format” (available as a free download at the end).

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Bold Ideas, Thin Evidence: Reading the Jenrette Report with Caution and Curiosity

The Jenrette Foundation’s State of American Historic Preservation Education (September 2025) lands like a wake-up call for our field. At more than 25 pages, it’s not just a summary of trends in preservation education—it’s a challenge to rethink what we mean by “historic preservation” altogether. Although the report focuses on universities and training programs, its insights are strikingly relevant for leaders at historic sites and house museums.

At its core, the report argues that historic preservation is due for a rebranding—not a new slogan, but a new mindset. “Preservation isn’t about old buildings,” the authors write, “it’s about shared futures.” That’s a phrase that will resonate with anyone who’s struggled to convince visitors, funders, or policymakers that historic sites matter. For years, preservationists have known that saving a place is just the start; what matters is how that place connects to people, stories, and community life. The Jenrette report gives that idea institutional weight, calling for preservation to be seen as a civic, cultural, and economic force—an engine for workforce development, sustainability, and belonging.

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Who Does What? Clarifying Roles for Nonprofit Boards and Staff

One of the most common challenges for nonprofit organizations—whether museums, historic sites, or community groups—is understanding who does what when it comes to decision-making, planning, and day-to-day operations.

Board members sometimes worry they are getting too involved in management or don’t know enough about what’s going on. Staff members, on the other hand, can feel their authority is being questioned when board members step into operational details. Yet when everyone understands their distinct responsibilities, organizations thrive.

We would never expect a new volunteer to suddenly step into a historic house and deliver a flawless tour. They need orientation, resources, and time to develop their skills before they feel confident leading visitors.

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Heading to Cincinnati for AASLH—Will You Be There?

This week I’m heading to Cincinnati for the American Association for State and Local History’s Annual Meeting—and I couldn’t be more excited. After a couple of years of scheduling conflicts that kept me away, I’m very much looking forward to reconnecting with colleagues and friends from across the country.

If you’ll be there, I hope to see you at the History Leadership Institute reception on Wednesday afternoon. If we miss each other then, perhaps we’ll cross paths in the exhibit hall or between sessions. Please do say hello—I always enjoy hearing what others are working on.

I’ve been fortunate to visit many of Cincinnati’s museums over the years, but there’s always more to discover. I’m especially looking forward to Friday morning’s walking tour of the Over-the-Rhine District (which includes a special preview of the new OTR Museum) and Friday night’s reception at the American Sign Museum. There are so many museums to see and I can easily recommend the Cincinnati Art Museum, Taft Museum of Art (in a historic house), Harriet Beecher Stowe House, National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, and the Cincinnati Museum Center (a multi-museum complex in a splendid Art Deco train station). In addition, I’ll make a return visit to two places within walking distance: the 21c Museum Hotel (a surprising blend of luxury hotel and contemporary art museum—what are they doing now?) and the Contemporary Arts Center (by Zaha Hadid, the first woman to design an art museum in the US—how it is holding up?).

It promises to be a week full of learning, inspiration, and connection. I hope to see many of you in Cincinnati!

Job Fairs: A New Public Program for Museums?

This fall, the Museum Studies Program at George Washington University is joining forces again with the History and Art History Departments to offer a Museums+ Internship Fair. Now in its second year, the fair connects undergraduate and graduate students with a wide range of museum and history internship opportunities in the DC area. For a couple of hours on a Friday afternoon, students will gather in the atrium of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design to meet representatives from dozens of institutions—including the National Gallery of Art, Hillwood Estate, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Supreme Court of the United States, White House Historical Association, and many more. The goal is simple: to help students discover just how much they can do with their degrees and to broaden their horizons by meeting professionals working across the museum and history fields.

As we’ve been preparing for the fair, I began to wonder—what if museums and historic sites flipped the concept and hosted a similar program for their own communities? Instead of being a service for students alone, imagine it as a public program, designed to connect local residents, businesses, and organizations with the museum itself.

Benefits to the Community

For many people working in business, technology, or traditional jobs, the idea of contributing their skills to a nonprofit or museum has never crossed their minds. They may not recognize that their expertise—whether in marketing, finance, customer service, or carpentry—has enormous value to cultural organizations. By connecting residents with organizations and ideas outside their usual circles, museums can help expand horizons and build confidence.

Benefits for the Museum

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Webinar: Interpreting Winter Holidays with Your Community

The winter holidays are some of the most beloved and heavily attended times of year for museums and historic sites—but interpreting them can be a challenge. Whose stories are told? What traditions are represented? How can we ensure our programs are welcoming, accurate, and relevant to our communities?

If you’ve been asking these questions, join me at an upcoming webinar hosted by the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH):

  • “Interpreting Winter Holidays with Your Community”
  • Wednesday, June 12, 2025, 3:00–4:00 PM Eastern
  • $45 / $25 for AASLH members
  • Register here

I’ll be speaking alongside Ken Turino, Martha Katz-Hyman, and Morgan Lloyd, each of whom brings experience and insights into crafting more inclusive, community-centered holiday programs. We’ll explore ways that museums and historic sites can move beyond nostalgic or monolithic narratives and instead embrace a richer variety of traditions and histories—from Hanukkah to Kwanzaa, from secular seasonal festivals to the complexities of Christmas. Whether you’re revamping long-standing programs or launching something new, this session will offer fresh ideas, examples, and practical steps for engaging your community during the holiday season.

In my portion of the webinar, I’ll share strategies for refreshing an existing Christmas event by incorporating research on state and local history, helping organizations better connect with their communities and interpret traditions in a meaningful context.

The webinar is inspired in part by the recent book Interpreting Christmas at Museums and Historic Sites, which Ken and I co-edited and which features contributions from many practitioners grappling with these same questions. As a bonus, webinar attendees will receive a 30% discount on the book.