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History Advocacy: Lessons from the Massachusetts History Alliance Conference

July 29, 2019
by Peter Feinman
You should see all the political cartoons I passed on!!!

The history community does not do a good job advocating for itself. I am not referring to the actions an individual history organization may take on behalf of its own organization. Instead I am referring to collective action on behalf of the entire history community within the state. The major exception to this generalization is the historic preservation community. It sometimes has its own statewide organizations, conferences, and agenda items for lobbying state legislators. Unfortunately, the history community itself may be lacking such an organized and concerted effort.

To some extent the Massachusetts History Alliance was created to address this shortcoming. According to its website (officially “under construction’):

MHA has advocacy priorities in three areas: advocacy for public history to the legislature, advocacy to the public history field, and advocacy for public history to the general public.

The MHA advocates for legislative initiatives that fund local and public history efforts in the Commonwealth. This includes the provision of opportunities that make it easier for smaller organizations to survive, such as grant opportunities or tax credits.

The MHA promotes the message that a vibrant history community is good for local businesses and contributes to our state’s economic vitality.

The MHA advances the idea that an awareness of local and public history is an essential component of civic engagement.

The MHA endorses the funding of regional networks and collaborative efforts that positively impact local and public history in Massachusetts. It encourages the development of greater communication between the numerous and distinct history organizations across the state.

The MHA supports entities that encourage the preservation of historic buildings, objects and documents.

The MHA advocates for the continued funding of its Annual Conference.

So far after having attended several of its annual conferences (blogs on the 2015 and 2017 conferences), I am not sure how far it is progressed in actually having a history advocacy day at the state capital on behalf of a specific history agenda.

With these thoughts in mind, I attended the session “Make Your Case, Make a Difference: Advocacy Tools for the Small, Busy, and Passionate” at the conference. The session was dedicated to providing tools or tricks of the trade for individual history organizations to use to advocate on behalf of individual history organizations. In other words, it was all about how you as the executive director/president could speak to your own legislator if you happen to meet that person in an elevator at the state capital. The session was entirely geared towards individual people representing individual organizations advocating for individual items on behalf of the individual organization.

This session had nothing to do with what the history community really needs. In this regard, it was eerily similar to another advocacy session I attended years ago at another state conference. The issue facing the individual history organizations is not how to advocate with their own legislators for themselves. People are quite capable of doing that at home without going to the state capital. History organizations are quite capable of inviting their own state representatives to their own site. History organizations are quite capable of contacting their own state representatives about some pressing need at home in their own community without traveling to the state capital. In fact, history organizations frequently are quite capable of speaking personally to their state representative without all the protocols presented in the session or hoping for a chance meeting in the hallway or in the elevator.

By coincidence our newly reactivated local historical society had a pizza night at a local restaurant a few days ago for those who have helped to reactivate it. Guess who stopped by? Our local state legislator who lives in the area! We really do not need to go to the state capital to meet with him.

Invite Congress to Visit Your Museum

The American Alliance of Museums (AAM) has created its own program for meeting elected officials at the federal level (for details click here).

Inviting local, state and federal elected officials and their staff members into your museum is a uniquely powerful way to show them what museums are and what museums do – from world-class exhibitions to working with local students and community members on critical life skills. There’s never been a more important time to engage with the elected officials and stakeholders that represent your museum.

The August Congressional Recess is a great time to get started, but any time of year is a good time to invite your legislators into the museum. We make it easy to participate with this step-by-step “How To” guide that can be used to connect with your elected officials throughout the year. Use the Alliance “How To” Guide below to get started today, and don’t forget to use #InviteCongress on social media!

There is no inherent reason why something comparable could not be created at the state level.

So what then do the individual history organizations need at the state level to do this?

There are two items.

1. Statewide history concerns
2. Statewide organization to arrange for a history advocacy day in support of the statewide history concerns.

The Massachusetts History Alliance conference is co-sponsored by Mass Humanities. Everybody has a state humanities organization. Everybody has a state arts organization. Everybody has a state organization that helps fund exhibits, lectures, and public programs. What is its budget? Is the funding of this organization or these organizations depending on how the functions are set up in the state of interest to the history community? Obviously. Equally obviously, it also is of interest to other museum such as art and science museums. Sometimes differentiating these organizations is problematic. Albany Institute of History and Art. Bundy Museum of History and Art. Museum Advocacy Day at the nation’s capital takes this approach. Why not do the same at the state level?

Mass Humanities has two grant programs specifically geared towards local history. The Research Inventory grants provide a maximum of $2000 to fund inventory projects at small historical organizations. The Scholar in Residence grants are for up to $3500 to enable organizations to draw on a level of expertise not normally available to them to research that entity’s collection or mission. What is the total pool of funds available for these local history grants?  Could that total be increased? Could the maximums be raised? Could the history community lobby for such increases? What about the equivalent programs in other states? If you do not have one, could the history community advocate for their creation? If you do have them, could you advocate for additional funding?

Another supporter of the Massachusetts History Alliance conference is the Massachusetts State Historical Records Advisory Board known locally as SHRAB. One popular program is the Roving Archivist. Just as Mass Humanities can send a scholar to your organization, SHRAB can send an archivist to your site. It can assist in the purchase of materials and supplies needed for archival purposes. It conducts training sessions and workshops on archival related matters. What is its budget? Could it be more? Does your state have something comparable? If not, why not? If you do have them, could you advocate for additional funding?

A third type of funding is for anniversaries. In a recent blog I wrote about the newly created federal commission for the American Revolution 250th. My impression is that this commission will be of little use locally at least for years to come. Massachusetts cannot wait for 1776 or even 1775. The 250th anniversary of the Boston Massacre is next year. The time for advocating for funding for statewide programs on behalf of what happened in 1770 is already past due….just as it is in virtually all states. Maybe the history community could use the same funding apparatus created to celebrate the Suffrage Centennial for the American Revolution!!!!

Since I wrote the blog on the American Revolution, I received an email from Johanna Yuan, the Orange County historian in New York. She included a draft of a resolution to be submitted to the Orange County legislature on plans for the commemoration of the 250th. It identifies 1775-1783 as the relevant time period deliberately to expand beyond the federal legislation. The theme will be “Which Side Are You On?” with the intention of provoking discussion of history and historical implications of the events that took place in the Hudson Valley, New York State and beyond. The format is to have yearly themes related to the events of 1775 to 1783. This approach is similar to the one Fort Ticonderoga has used for presenting the French and Indian War. I suggested the same approach be taken in the state at a meeting held by Devin Lander, the New York State historian but starting before 1775 if possible. Johanna’s actions demonstrate what can be done at a local level without waiting for federal and/or state action.

And what about regional cooperation. Those canons from Fort Ticonderoga did not magically appear outside Boston to relieve the siege there. Will there be an event following the route? And to the best of my knowledge Rochambeau did not make use of airports to go from Rhode Island to Virginia although I recognize that I may be in error here. For that matter militias from throughout New England participated in battles in New York and were camped here. So we need to think not only about our county and state but about our region.

One final item for history advocacy comes from New York. This is the Museum Education Act sponsored by the Museum Association of New York (MANY). Although one would not know it from the name, it is about busing, the funding of buses for school trips to museums. So it is not a history program per se but for all museums. The bill passed the Senate and the Assembly in this past session but was not signed by the Governor. One may anticipate a new and improved bill to be submitted in the 2020 session. Busing expense is a chronic and widespread problem with school visits. It is something history communities very could advocate for.

Speaking of education, I have left out two critical areas involving local history. First the training of teachers in local history and second, the incorporation of local history into the curriculum. Those are huge topics.

So there is plenty for the history community to advocate for should the history community ever get its act together and establish a history advocacy day at the next session of your state legislature.

Save the History Community: Clone Erika Sanger

December 18, 2017
by Peter Feinman

In recent posts, I have reported on the absence of any private state-wide organization advocating on behalf of the history community.

History Professors Protest for Local and State History

NYSHA Responds to Advocacy for Local and State History Post

The NYSHA Saga Continues: Gone but Not Forgotten

The former New York State History Association (NYSHA) located in Cooperstown has not fulfilled that role. Effectively it is a local farmers’ museum and national art museum. While these two functions are perfectly legitimate ones that focus raises significant critical issues regarding the leadership within the history community in this state…or, more accurately, the absence of any leadership.

Simultaneously with the NYSHA posts, I also introduced the actions of another private state-wide, organization, the Museum Association of New York (MANY) with its executive director Erika Sanger. What follows then is a report of events in the last two weeks contrasting the actions of NYSHA and MANY. The contrast provides insight into what a proposed New York State History Society (NYSHS) should do.

THE MANY WAY

To begin with, MANY sent a query to its members for information about the Regional Economic Development Council (REDC) funding process as it relates to the New York State Council for the Arts (NYSCA). The request was in preparation for testimony Erika was to give before the Committee on Tourism at its budget hearing on December 5. That request led to a response by Rosa Fox, the municipal historian for the Town of Huron who also is responsible for three buildings. That response generated a new post, not directly about NYSHA but related.

Before turning to the results of the query, let’s examine the difference between NYSHA and MANY.

1. MANY is a membership organization with museums from around the state (including zoos, aquariums, art museums, and science museums, as well as history organizations; NYSHA is not.

2. MANY has a full-time person dedicated to state-wide issues; NYSHA does not.

3. MANY testifies to the legislature and Regents on statewide issues; NYSHA does not.

4. MANY solicits the opinion of the state-wide community; NYSHA does not.

So regardless of the particular details of the December 5 testimony, one can immediately differentiate the two organizations and decide what one would like the NYSHS to do if it existed.

The results of Erika’s survey have been circulated through the MANY distribution network so it is not necessary for me to repeat them here. I will just note a response of 89 organizations of various sizes, budgets and regions in the state. Many organizations were not familiar with the REDC process in general or found it daunting to apply. That process itself was the subject of a recent post about “Hunger Games” the apparently routine nick name in Albany for REDC funding.

HUNGER GAMES AWARDS

The awards for 2017 were just announced last week. As has become my custom, the grants will be analyzed in a series of posts as they relate to the history community. As also expected the phrase “Path through History” does not appear anywhere in the report. In the responses to MANY, the 35% of the organizations that did seek REDC funding reported on all the categories they used and not just NYSCA. These funding sources included:

Art and Culture Initiative
Arts and Culture Facilities Capital Grant program
Historic Preservation and Recreational Trails.
Market New York (I LoveNY)

One should note that NYSOPRHP is a well-established source of funding for the history community and that the NYS Museum has zero funding in the current arrangement. I will be reporting on these grants in the new year with one exception.

MANY was the recipient of an award. It issued the following notice:

MANY is thrilled to announce that we received our first Regional Economic Development Council (REDC) grant for Administrative Workforce Expansion! We would like to thank Governor Cuomo and the members of the Capital Region Economic Development Council for their support of the Museum Association of New York and the New York State museum field.  

The grant will allow MANY to hire a Marketing and Social Media Coordinator to manage digital marketing and communications, enrich our service to the field, promote professional development programs, share funding opportunities, and improve economic stability in New York’s cultural sector.

Thanks to everyone who signed our letter of support and congratulations to all the organizations who received support. You can find the full list of grant awards here.

In this notice, one observes pluses and minuses of the program. First, MANY is to be congratulated. Second, one notices that even though it is a state-wide organization, it was obligated to apply through the Capital Region since it is located in Troy. The current setup means that even if NYSHA had sought any funding it would have had to have done so through the Mohawk Valley region. Remember there is a Mohawk Valley region in REDC funding but not in I LoveNY or the Path through History. This application process highlights the hunger games competition among the regions with no provision for state-wide organizations.

MUSEUM EDUCATION ACT

Wait, there’s more from MANY. The organization has been active with the Museum Education Act. During this busy past week, it sent out the following notice:

Dear Friends, Colleagues, and MANY Members,

On Tuesday, the New York State Board of Regents unanimously endorsed the $1.6 billion state aid proposal along with their 2018 budget and legislative priorities. We are thrilled to report that for the first time ever the Regents designated the Museum Education Act as a budget priority and proposed $5 million to fund it.

Under their state budget priorities, the Regents describe this new program as:

Expanding Access to Education Programs through Cultural Institutions – Support the Museum Education Act and establish competitive grants to support cultural institutions that seek to establish or improve museum education programs designed to improve and support student learning opportunities, including supporting the development of local curricular aids.

And if this action was not sufficiently awesome on its own, the State Education Department released a video on today of Commissioner MaryEllen Elia’s statement about how increasing equity has been the driving force behind everything SED does. In talking about equity, the Commissioner specifically mentions passing the Museum Education Act and linking museum education programs with pre k -12 schools to enable students to learn from the museums’ “incredible collections”.

We are grateful to Chancellor Betty Rosa, Regent Roger Tilles, Commissioner MaryEllen Elia, Executive Deputy Commissioner Elizabeth Berlin and Deputy Commissioner of Cultural Education Mark Schaming for their support of museums in New York. 

But, we’re not quite home yet. To get these bills passed in the upcoming legislative session will require your help.  We will soon be sending out new tools to help you call and meet with your legislators. We will also be selecting dates for you to join us in Albany to advocate for passage of the Museum Education Act.

WHY THE HISTORY COMMUNITY NEEDS TO CLONE ERIKA SANGER

Again let’s look at what Erika has been up to as executive director for MANY.

1. Testifying before both the Regents and the Legislature.

2. Getting $5 million approved as a budget it (that’s real money!)

3. Calling on members to advocate with their own legislators apparently both locally and at the state capital.

It should be noted also that MANY has retained a lobbyist and has re-instituted the practice of conference calls for its members with the lobbyist for updates on the world of politics in Albany.

In short, Erika and MANY are doing on behalf of the museum community what nobody is doing on behalf of the history community. Is there more that needs to be done even within the museum community? Definitely, but at least someone is trying. Should there be a NYSHS based in the capital region acting on behalf of the history community as MANY is for the museum community. Definitely. Will there be? What does it take to make it happen?

REDC: Funding “Hunger Games” Where History Is the Loser

December 9, 2017
by Peter Feinman
Goshen Legoland (photo by Legoland)

Over the years, I have reported on the funding available to the history community through the REDC process. Recently, I have had cause to review that pitiful process. The impetus for this review was an eblast from Erika Sanger, Executive Director, Museum Association of New York (MANY) on November 29. I posted that notice on November 30 at the conclusion of the response from Paul D’Ambrosio, President and CEO of the Fenimore Art Museum and Farmers’ Museum to an earlier post on NYSHA.  Erika  testified on December 5 at the New York State Assembly’s Standing Committee on Tourism, Parks, Arts, and Sports Development’s Annual Budget Oversight Hearing of the 2017-2018 State Budget. The purpose of this hearing is to review the impact and effectiveness of the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) grants awarded throughout the State and arts projects funded by NYSCA. She asks for comments about the funding.

Rosa Fox, the municipal historian for Huron sent Erika an email response with a copy to me and gave me permission to incorporate it into a post. I first met Rosa at the new municipal historians session of the annual conference of the Association of Public Historians of New York State (APHNYS), my favorite session at the conference. Putting aside all the details of how she became the historian, once she was appointed she learned that she also had three buildings/museums to maintain. Here is her reply to the MANY request for comment:

 Good Morning Erika,

This morning I replied to the survey you are using to help build your testimony for next week’s Budget Oversight Committee. So glad to know you are doing this and that you have reached out to us – in the field – to inquire as to our experiences/thoughts. Thank you!

I am a very very small town municipal historian. You may not even have heard of Huron, NY.  The town is located in Wayne County (Upstate – about half way between Rochester and Syracuse).  Huron has no village – just lots of rolling apple orchards. We are well known for Chimney Bluffs State Park. Huron also has Lake Ontario as its northern border and is blessed with three embayments that provide plentiful recreation during all seasons – as long as the water levels are sensible. That is another story. 

I started the historian gig in 2015 – about six months after I retired from 35 years of teaching – middle school band. In addition to the role of historian, I found myself in charge of three historic buildings. One of the buildings functions as archives and museum. The other two are historic buildings that are open several times a year for public visitation – an 1871 schoolhouse and a grange building. 

In the first couple years of my role as town historian, I attended the REDC-CFA meetings in Rochester with great hopes of applying for a grant to assist with the restoration of our historic grange building that was beginning to fall into disrepair. The entire REDC-CFA process was so discouraging and unattainable, I decided to forget about REDC-CFA. The grange building projects are being broken down into small – bite-sized pieces the town can handle. With the help of smaller, local, less cumbersome grant assistance and local donors, we will probably have the restoration completed by about 2030 or so. 

In my written reply on your survey, I commented that the REDC-CFA process appears to be geared for more populated communities. I know of very few communities in Wayne County that have benefited from REDC-CFA monies. I have spoken with a number of local historians and others – and they are all very discouraged by the process. I have also heard this same sentiment at out APHNYS conferences. Peter Feinman has also written a number of very eloquent articles that I have found express my sentiment about the whole REDC charade. I’m sure you are familiar with Peter’s writings [Erika is.]. If you are not, please let me know and I would be happy to send you some links. 

I am of the opinion that if anything positive can be done for small town museums, parks, arts organizations, historians, etc – it would be to get back to the decentralized grant process that was in place twenty years ago. I had written several successful grants for our community at that time, and also served on the grant review panel for the Wayne County Arts Council.

That process brought people – with common goals together. It was grass roots. It provided funds to small communities for activities and projects they could not otherwise afford. Because the funds were of smaller amounts – generally everyone who applied got something. We always had a grants reception for the grantees. That was a great way for people to network and learn about each other’s communities and projects, and get ideas for their community for future years. The arts thrived during the decentralized granting period. 

Erica, please feel free to quote, share, do whatever you like with this letter. You may or may not agree with my thoughts about REDC. You may be able to show this small town historian who has three historic buildings to oversee that the REDC-CFA process is more attainable that she thinks. If you can – hallelujah. 

In closing, thank you again for reaching out to us for our thoughts and experiences. Good luck next week. Look forward to reading about your testimony and experience before the panel.

Historically,

Rosa Fox
Town of Huron Historian

In my opinion, Rosa speaks not just for the Wayne County history community but for the overwhelming majority of municipal historians and historical societies who are shut out from the REDC process and no longer have Member Items to help them on a small scale.

Development Money, in Cuomo Era, Is Disbursed With Dazzle

This issue was the subject on an article on December 11, 2015 in the New York Times by Jesse McKinley with the title “Development Money, in Cuomo Era, Is Disbursed With Dazzle.” In the article, the competition among the regions for funding by the regions was compared to the competition to live among the regions in the movie “The Hunger Games.”

In January, Mr. Cuomo added a wrinkle to the format, dangling over the seven upstate regions an additional $1.5 billion in funding, to be disbursed over five years. The catch: Only three regions would win, each getting $500 million. (Three regions, including New York City, were not eligible.)

The plan drew quick and snarky comparisons to “The Hunger Games,” the dystopian thriller in which different regions submit their best and brightest progeny to the Capitol, culminating with the victors’ being celebrated by a television host.

The comparison was apt enough to inspire numerous Twitter posts with the hashtag #nyhungergames, as well as doctored images of Mr. Cuomo as a stand-in for President Snow, the villain of “The Hunger Games.” Such critiques were circulated by groups like Reclaim New York, which criticized the plan on Thursday as a “game-show approach to economic development” and “a disturbing and offensive example of government propaganda.”

Far be it from me to compare Albany to Hollywood. Wait a minute, considering the sex scandals may be the comparison isn’t so far-fetched.

The topic was the subject of a more recent article on June 7th of this year apparently by Gannett but appearing in a number of publications:

Transparency, accountability at issue in handling billions of taxpayer dollars

New York’s 10 regional councils have designated more than $4.4 billion to 5,300 projects since they were launched in 2011. But the money is largely void of benchmarks and job-creation goals, limiting the public’s ability to objectively determine whether the dollars have been well spent, a review of data and documents by the USA Today Network in New York found.

Are the taxpayers of New York getting their bang for their buck? As one investigates the process, one observes how irrelevant the history community is to it.

Critics say the process lacks openness and is ripe for conflicts because top leaders in the region often sit on the boards where grants can go to their own entities. That criticism has grown in the state Legislature, where lawmakers this year are proposing to tighten oversight of the boards and create new standards under which they operate. “We are talking about transparency. We are talking about accountability. And at the moment, we have neither,” Assemblyman Thomas Abinanti, D-Mount Pleasant, Westchester County, said.

The awards are commonly referred to as the “Hunger Games” because they pit each region of New York against one another for a pot of roughly $750 million a year.

Sometimes people are under the misperception that the REDC funding represents new funding be provided through the leadership of our Cuomo. That is only partially true.

Each year, the councils award about $750 million in aid to the 10 councils. The majority — $530 million — is not new money, but the same state aid previously doled out by governors, state agencies and lawmakers. The other $220 million is the “new money” each year allocated through Empire State Development, the state’s economic-development arm.

What’s changed is not the allocation of funds by NYSCA and NYSOPRHP to the history community but the format through which one applies for the funds. As previously reported the New York State Museum has no funding pool and I LoveNY which does, doesn’t fund projects in the history community.

The problems identified in the 2017 article mirror those in 2015:

But there is no audit or independent evaluation of their effectiveness. And the state does not have a current accounting of jobs created or retained, nor of the money spent…. As part of this year’s state budget, Empire State Development was tasked with creating an annual, comprehensive economic-development report on the state’s 30-plus job-creation programs.

Better late than never.

USA Today Network decided to take matters into its own hands. It created its own database with help from the Buffalo-based Investigative Post, ProPublica and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. The results should not be surprising to anyone with even a vague awareness of politics. Big rewards went to companies or colleges whose leaders sat on the very councils making decisions on the applications to be approved including Corning Enterprises, Binghamton University, the University of Rochester, Marist College and Stony Brook University. Corning, a recent host of both the APHNYS and MANY state conferences, with $40,000,000 was the recipient of the largest single award.

Some efforts are underway so revise the process. The Finger Lakes council revamped how it prioritizes projects. An evaluation team that reads and scores each application has been broadened to include greater geographic diversity. Ethics and conflict of interest guidelines now are being reviewed at the start of every meeting. And, beginning in May, those meetings are being video recorded and posted online. If the goal is to bring together the leaders of the community as Howard Zemsky, who heads Empire State Development, claims, will the inclusion also include the cultural heritage community and the place of non-recreational tourism?

The article concludes with a reference to tourism in my own region, the Mid-Hudson Valley. The article began with tourism in the Mid-Hudson Valley. Tourism does not mean river cruises although practically every major river in the world has river cruises and tourism began here with these cruises in the 1820s. Tourism does not mean the American Revolution although Washington spent more time in New York especially the Hudson Valley than in any other state during the war. Tourism does not mean the Dutch although there now are direct flights from Europe to Newburgh in the Hudson Valley. Tourism also does not mean immigrants, slavery or any of the other themes in the Path through History. Instead tourism means Legoland, the Rockland County reject now moving ahead in Orange County. And even assuming Legoland succeeds in drawing people from outside the region to Goshen, what else will the people do who have driven there? As even the representative Legoland said at the Tourism Advisory Council, now is the time to start planning. Is there are funding to do so?

Is there a place for the history community in the REDC funding process? So far the answer is “no.” And what about for non-tourism related projects like education, community and civics, or replacing a roof? Will anything change in the next funding cycle?

 

Did You Know that There Was a Regents Museum Advisory Council?

November 9, 2017
by Peter Feinman

Did you know that there is a Regents Museum Advisory Council? It reports to the Regents Cultural Education Committee. There is a story to be told about this advisory council and its meaning for the history community.

Back on January 6, 2012, Jeff Cannell, the former Deputy Commissioner of Cultural Education, sent a letter to the Regents Cultural Education Committee proposing the creation of an advisory council. The Regents Rules provided for such a council and Cannell now sought to officially request that it be created.

Members serve by appointment by the Commissioner with approval by the Board of Regents. Members serve for a maximum of five years. The council offers advice and consultation on issues of policy and service delivery pursuant to the Board’s statutory mandate to operate the State Museum and oversee museums across New York State.

There were to be 11 people on the advisory council with staggered terms. It was intended that the council be given the resources necessary to do its job.

The Advisory Council is supported by staff from the Office of Cultural Education and the Deputy Commissioner of Cultural Education acts as the convener and chair of the council, but without vote.

 The responsibilities of the proposed advisory council outlined in Cannell’s letter are listed below. Pay special attention to the highlighted items.

Monitor and Advise. The Regents Advisory Council on Museums will monitor and advise on education programs, funding opportunities and operations of the State Museum as well as policies, long-range plans, legislative proposals and regulations affecting museums and historical societies. The Advisory Council will also monitor and advise on Federal policies regarding museums and historical societies.

Strengthen. The Regents Advisory Council will work to strengthen the programs and services of the Museum, and other programs and services of the State Education Department that affect museums and historical societies.

Communicate. The Regents Advisory Council will ensure that effective communication takes place with the Regents and the Commissioner of Education regarding museums and historical societies. The Regents Advisory Council will also ensure that effective communication takes place between the Regents and the museum community. The Regents Advisory Council will seek to build an effective consensus on all policies and programs affecting all types of museums.

Advocate. The Regents Advisory Council will act as an advocate for museums, museum staff, and museum trustees. The Council will coordinate advocacy for Regents Initiatives with SED/OCE programs.

Looks pretty good doesn’t it. I confess that I have not been part of the “effective communications” process nor witnessed to the advocacy of the council. I am sure that it happened and it just must be that I am not in the loop.

Flashing ahead, I just extracted the following from the MANY website

Regents Advisory Council on Museums

After repeating the information noted above from Cannell, the website lists members of the council after Regents approved Cannell’s request [bold added]:

1. Dr. Anthony Bannon Director of the Burchfield Penney Art Center, SUNY Buffalo
2. Kate Bennett, President, Rochester Museum and Science Center
3. Paul S. D’Ambrosio, President and CEO, New York State Historical Association
4. Cecilia Esposito, Director, Plattsburgh State College Art Museum
5. Catherine Gilbert, Director, Museum Association of New York
6. Thelma Golden, Director, Studio Museum in Harlem
7. Kim Kanatani, Director of Education, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
8. Beth E. Levinthal , Executive Director, Hofstra University Museum
9. Anthony J. Ortega, Executive Vice President, Museum of Science & Technology
10. David Slippen, Senior Director of Government Relations, American Museum of Natural History
11. Martin E. Sullivan, Director, National Portrait Gallery

Even without doing much research, I suspect this MANY website list derives from the initial creation of the advisory council in 2012 following Cannell’s request. Since the New York State Historical Association no longer exists and Catherine Gilbert has been succeeded first by Devin Lander and now Erika Sanger as MANY Executive Directors, this list is obsolete. Since it was the only list on the MANY website, it does not suggest an active advisory council, an ongoing update of the list, or both.

Parallel with these events, State Legislator Steve Englebright was seeking to make sense of history organizations at the state level. His first effort was to reorganize the various history-related departments to in effect create a substantial equivalent of the Office of State History which had once existed. That effort went nowhere. He then sought to create an advisory council. I attended the History Roundtable he convened in Albany on May 29, 2014, and wrote about it.

After sending out a notice about the upcoming meeting to the history community, some people in the Albany area did attend. Cannell was there along with Regent Roger Tilles of the Cultural Education Committee. Devin Lander in his last day on Englebright’s staff attended and then after the weekend become the MANY Executive Director. Needless-to-say, these efforts went nowhere. 

More recently, Cannell left the position of Deputy Commissioner. The efforts to fill that slot (along with the creation of a state historian position) were the subject of some posts on May 24, 2016, and June 2, 2016.

Then in March, 2017, Mark Schaming, State Museum Director was promoted to the Deputy position while maintaining his State Museum position. I don’t know if he receives two salaries or not or simply was given a raise commensurate with the Deputy position.

In April, Mark submitted a letter to the Cultural Education Committee on the subject of appointments to the Regents Advisory Council on Museums.

Does the Board of Regents approve of the Commissioner’s recommendation to reappoint three members and appoint five new members to fill vacancies on the Regents Advisory Council on Museums?

Current members of the council include [Note – not vacant or staggered]:

1. Kate Bennett, President of the Rochester Museum & Science Center
2. Suzanne LeBlanc, President of the Long Island Children’s Museum
3. Sara Pasti, Director of the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY New Paltz

The Commissioner recommends the following five-year reappointments and appointments: to May 31, 2022

1. Paul S. D’Ambrosio, President and CEO of the Fenimore Art Museum
2. Cecilia Esposito, Director of the Plattsburgh Art Museum
3. Daniel Slippen, Vice President of Government Relations of the American Museum of Natural History
4. Jan Ramirez, Chief Curator of the National September 11 Memorial Museum
5. Joe Lin-Hill, Deputy Director of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery
6. Elizabeth Dunbar, Director of the Everson Museum of Art
7. Holly Block, Executive Director of The Bronx Museum of the Arts
8. Kris Wetterlund, Director of Education and Interpretation of the Corning Museum of Glass

The names in bold represent changes from the original 2012 list so evidently there has been some movement in the intervening five years. This time around, the MANY Executive Director was not included. One does wonder what exactly the advisory council had done for the previous five years. Is that information public?

Over the summer, the proceedings became a little trickier as an effort was undertaken to expand the museum advisory council and standardize the numbers with the library council. The increase was unanimously approved at the May 8th meeting. That effort involved a 45-day public comment period starting in August with a November 1 target date for implementation.

On August 25, MANY submitted a public comment on the Amendment of Section 3.12 of the Rules of the Board of Regents relating to the Members of the Museum Council and the Library Council.

We strongly support this amendment that will increase the number of members on the Museum Advisory Council from five to fifteen. [Note – I thought it was from 11 but I may have missed something along the way.] As recognized by the Board of Regents, New York’s chartered museums are an integral part of New York State’s Education Department. This increase is an important step towards a broader representation by museum location, size, and type of collection. A greater number of voices from New York’s cultural community will help shape and inform the work of the State Education Department and move the Council towards a more accurate reflection of the diversity of our state.  

0n October 5, Schaming submitted to the Cultural Education Committee a request to appoint the first of the new members to the Regents Advisory Council on Museums for a five-year term beginning November 1, 2017:

Gretchen Sorin, Director of the Cooperstown Graduate Program in Museum Studies and Distinguished Professor

The appointment was approved at the October 17 meeting. It now being November, I presume she has now joined the Regents Advisory Council on Museums.

Now let’s return to some of the questions previously suggested and perhaps which have occurred to readers of this post.

1. What has the Regents Advisory Council on Museums been doing?
2. How has it discharged its responsibility to effectively communicate with the history community?
3. How has it discharged its responsibility to advocate on behalf of the history community?
4. How has it discharged its responsibility to monitor education policies particularly related to the teaching of local history?
5. Why isn’t there a session at the annual MANY conference set aside for the Regents Advisory Council on Museums to report to the museum community?
6. Why isn’t there a representative from the Regents Advisory Council on Museums present at each of the regional meetups conducted by MANY throughout the state?
7. What is the contact information for the museum and history community to use to reach out to the Regents Advisory Council on Museums?

It’s great to know that there is a Regents Advisory Council on Museums but I can’t help but wonder how many people in the history community even know that it exists and what it has actually accomplished.

MANY And Advocacy For The NYS History Community

October 19, 2014
by Peter Feinman

In this post, I wish to focus attention on recent developments involving the Museum Association of New York (MANY) and opportunities for advocacy on behalf of the history community.

MANY has undergone significant changes which are of importance to the history community, though it should be noted that the organization’s membership is not limited to historical museums, but also include art and science museums, zoos, botanical gardens and aquariums. Continue reading “MANY And Advocacy For The NYS History Community” →