With a new executive director at its helm, the staff at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art is beginning the long process of renewing the institution’s status as a nationally accredited museum for the first time in 10 years.
Jill Hartz, who took over for an interim director last August, said the museum is using the accreditation process to critically look at its overall operation and develop a strategic plan to move through the next few years.
The on-campus art museum is one of six nationally accredited museums in Oregon, said Erick Hoffman, the museum’s director of communications.
Initially, Hartz said the American Association of Museums, the national organization that sets the standards for accreditation and reviews the applications for the title, instructed the University to begin the lengthy application process in December 2008.
But because Hartz only recently took over as museum director, the association has allowed it to postpone the process until August 2009, Hartz said.
“Now we are able to have the re-accreditation process with the strategic plan to follow in sequence,” Hartz said.
To become accredited by the AAM, the museum must begin the application by undergoing one year of “self-study” where the entire staff looks critically at every aspect of museum operation, from the administrative operations to museum security.
“The self-study is a series of questions about how every distinct area of the museum operates,” Hartz said. “So there are pages of questions.”
Because the self-study will highlight the staff’s strengths and weaknesses, Hartz said it will be easy to create a workable strategic plan simultaneously.
“If you are an accredited museum you have to have a strategic plan, anyway,” Hartz said. “I think that if you have it … you need to make it a living, breathing document.”
After the self-study closes, the AAM will review the museum’s application for approximately six months, during which time it will visit the campus to verify the submitted material. After these visits, Hartz said it will probably take the AAM another six months before deciding to either approve, deny or table the application pending specified operational improvements.
Because Hartz has only been director for a few months, she does not know exactly where the staff will want to take the strategic plan.
Hartz does, however, have some personal pieces of flair she hopes to bring to the museum exhibits, which are currently strongest in the older Asian arts.
“I really hope to bring things up to date,” Hartz said.
The University announced its plan to bring Hartz into the position last spring because it felt she had the ability to bridge the gap between the University’s fundraising goals and its academic needs.
Because the museum’s oversight was moved from the Provost’s Office to University Advancement, which deals heavily with fundraising, in June 2007, it was important for the new director to be able to successfully incorporate both the academic mission of the museum to serve the University students, staff and faculty, and the outside community. The transfer was controversial. The University Senate unanimously passed a motion in November 2007 asking University President Dave Frohnmayer to move the museum back under the provost’s jurisdiction once the museum found a new executive director.
“We wanted someone who understood the academic mission on campus and the community mission off campus,” Robert Melnick, the former interim museum director, said last spring.
Hartz said she has been in the museum profession for 20 years, the past 10 of which she spent as the director of the University of Virginia Art Museum.
“I was ready for a larger museum,” Hartz said. “It’s a great feeling (that) the career you have chosen is something that you love but you can go to other places with it.”
Hartz said that although the museum is not required to align itself with the University’s academic focus, she plans on working closely with the Provost’s Office to ensure the museum is best serving the students.
“Our (primary) constituents are the students,” Hartz said. “I want to have students coming in (the museum) excited about it.”
For this reason, Hartz said during the process of creating a strategic plan and applying to renew its national accreditation she will be monitoring and incorporating the Office of the Provost’s Academic Plan, which is meant to outline the University’s academic mission and focus to aid the University Presidential search process.
Hartz might also try to increase diversity both in constituents and in the exhibits.
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