AMA hosts museum minor kickoff for ASU

ALBANY — The first step in Albany State University professor Chazz Williams’ yearlong dream of enhancing career opportunities for minority students in the museum profession became reality Saturday when Williams, Albany Museum of Art Director Paula Williams and former AMA Director Nick Nelson conducted a National Endowment for the Humanities-funded seminar at the museum.

The goal of the program, funded by a two-year, $99,000 NEH grant, is to create an interdisciplinary museum and heritage studies minor at Albany State, Williams, a professor of visual arts and the gallery coordinator at ASU, said Saturday during the first of what will be eight seminars on the planned program.

“The grant allows us to investigate and develop a minor program at Albany State,” Williams said. “What we’d like to accomplish is to have requirements for a proper minor established by fall and have this program operational by 2019. We’ve got the support of our department chair and academic dean (at ASU), and we’re well-vetted at the university to meet all requirements of a 15-credit-hour minor program.

“To establish a major in the field would require meeting (University System of Georgia Board of Regents) requirements.”

Both Chazz Williams and Paula Williams said bringing the minor program to Albany State is significant. No other historically black college or university has such a program.

“Museums across the nation are working hard to create opportunities for a more diversified work force,” Paula Williams said Saturday. “The simple fact is, there are not a lot of African Americans in this field. It’s a very specialized field. That’s why, for Albany State to be the only HBCU in the country to develop a program like this, well, it’s a big deal.”

Chazz Williams said during introductory comments at Saturday’s seminar that “about 86 percent” of personnel who work in the museum industry are white. Only 1 percent, he said, are black.

“You also need to consider that there are no museum majors offered at colleges in Georgia,” the ASU professor said. “Georgia College and State University offers a concentration, but not a degree. And you can get a certificate at Kennesaw State, but, again, no degree. In Georgia, that’s pretty much it.”

Chazz Williams said his long-term vision is to offer a degree program in museum studies at ASU. That, he said, would take “four or five years of demonstrating a successful minor program,” and incorporating such educational disciplines as visual and performing arts, business, computer science, education and history into the program curriculum.

“We think our ultimate task is carried out by a diverse group of scholars, students, curators, directors, staff and patrons working together in mutually beneficial service strategies while best preparing our students for their future careers,” Williams said. “We’ve already gotten support and buy-in from other local museums: The Albany Area Arts Council, the Albany Civil Rights Institute, the Thronateeska Heritage Museum and the Flint RiverQuarium.

“I have no doubt that there is interest in this program moving forward. Our students are thrilled about it.”

Nelson, who now serves as director of the Springfield (Mo.) Art Museum, was making his first visit to Albany since before the January 2017 storms that damaged much of the community, including the museum. He said it’s exciting to see the Albany facility work with Albany State to support the museum minor curriculum.

“It’s exciting to hear voices of leadership in the community work together to bring about positive change,” Nelson said. “When you connect the local museum officials with a diverse faculty outside the museum field, you get fresh ideas, different eyes with different focuses. You open the door to a lot of new opportunities.”

Paula Williams said the population served by the Albany Museum of Art dictates the kinds of changes Nelson spoke of.

“This facility has a $4 million economic impact on this community,” she said. “We’ve long sought ways to enhance inclusion, with our programs and within the museum as a provider of work force opportunities. We recognize what our community looks like, and we want to serve our entire population.”

The second seminar of eight planned by Williams and others involved in the grant program is scheduled June 14 at the Flint RiverQuarium. Others are planned at the Albany Area Arts Council and the Albany Civil Rights Institute.