New Directions for University Museums

New Directions for University Museums explores the evolving role and relationship of university museums with their host institutions, their changing role in teaching and research, their engagement with communities, and their role in empowering new generations using case studies of innovative practice to map future directions and challenges for this sector.

University museums are a significant and diverse sector within the broader museum community, embracing visual arts, natural history, ethnography, science and technology, social history, medicine, archaeology and classics, all within a university setting and construct. It is estimated there are more than 3,500 university museums spread across all populated continents. Some act as local, state, and regional cultural and scientific centres for their communities, others are aligned solely to a single discipline or faculty within the university.

With collections in some cases dating back centuries, most began life as teaching facilities tied to a single discipline or faculty. The museums were largely inward looking, their collections used for teaching and research, and as teaching methods changed were at risk of becoming irrelevant within their own institutions. Yet the collections they hold are often highly significant, not only to their host universities but to the communities which they serve.

New Directions provides background on the evolution of university museums and their collections and outlines how changes in outlook and the way museums have navigated the tricky waters of university politics and administration have led to a far stronger role within their institutions. Over the past couple of decades many have gone from barely surviving to now thriving, becoming a university’s interface with the public and a focal point for cross-disciplinary programs within the institution, reflecting its agendas and values.

Many museums now look beyond specific faculty alignments to embrace working across multiple faculties while maintaining a research and teaching focus. More still have become connectors between communities and their respective universities and drivers of university-wide agendas of societal cohesion, cultural diversity, social inclusion, and climate change.

What sets a university museum apart from other museums and art galleries is their potential within a university setting and its academic freedoms to explore difficult and sometimes contentious issues. Some of these issues are embedded in the very collections cared for by the museum, for example, collections formed from or associated with slavery and colonialism. Others are broad societal concerns of racism, climate change, and “fake news” (and the importance of understanding science and evidence-based research).

New Directions’ twenty essays are arranged in four sections: The Institutional Context, The Academic Mission: New Directions in Teaching and Research, The University Museum in the Community, and The University Museum in a Changing World. Each section covers broad issues and directions using examples of innovative museum practice from industry leaders and with a useful summary from editor Brad King. Essays range from the practical—Priming students for active learning in the art museum, to the theoretical—Trends in Museum Studies Programs: Supporting critical thinkers and critical doers. Some essays are a call to action, taking an activist stance on, for example, repatriation and decolonisation, and do not shy away from contentious issues such as the sometimes murky world of art and patronage, proposing a radical re-think of curatorial practice.

Within Australia, the Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney provides examples of how that museum has engaged and challenged students from all faculties through object-based learning and a multi-disciplinary approach to collections, and how partnering with the university faculties has given collections a new life resulting in their far greater use and visibility within the university.

It is the final section of the book that is the most forward looking. The University Museum in a Changing World explores the role of university museums as leaders and facilitators of positive cultural and societal change.

The empowerment of Indigenous communities with all matters concerning their cultural heritage held in museum collections is, for example, a relatively recent and welcome development as museums come to grips with their past and how their collections came to be, which in some instances has led to repatriation of cultural material. These developments and the more open way museums deal with cultural and scientific collections, and interpret and disseminate knowledge held within the institution are now widely championed by museum leaders. They are not without controversy but in a context of academic freedom (within limits) this is to be expected and indeed embraced.

New Directions for University Museums with its reflections on program and collection innovation and experimentation is a reminder of the potential, power, and responsibility of university museums, a sector sometimes overlooked within the cultural and visual arts milieu. It is a valuable resource for museum directors, planners, and senior university staff, especially those wishing to initiate change within their museums, and for students and future cultural leaders to interrogate.

This review was originally published in Artist Profile, issue 68  

BOOK
New Directions for University Museums
Edited by Brad King
Rowman & Littlefield, 2024
ISBN 978-1-5381-5773-2
RRP $65.00 AUD