NEW LONDON, CONN.- The Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces its Multicultural Action Plan, reports Museum Director Sam Quigley. Created to address the Museum’s historic lack of racial inclusiveness, the plan, referred to as the MAP, outlines a comprehensive series of action steps to strengthen to Museum’s commitment to all audiences.
“The Lyman Allyn will celebrate its 90th birthday in 2022,” said Sam Quigley, “and this initiative, which is integral to achieving our mission, represents the strongly held belief of all the members of our Board and Staff. We must take intentional and measurable steps to advance inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility on every level of the Museum.”
To that end, the Lyman Allyn’s Board approved an eight-point plan that includes improving the Museum’s exhibition mix, its collecting efforts, recruitment of trustees and staff of color, learning programs, communications, and fundraising to ensure historically marginalized segments of society are represented. The Museum’s MAP also calls for a formal review and a process to establish goals to be achieved on an ongoing annual basis.
The complete plan is outlined below.
Multicultural Action Plan
As adopted unanimously by the Board of Trustees, November 18, 2021
To realize fully our potential as a museum of American Art, the Lyman Allyn Art Museum is committed to intentionally effecting measures to address its historic lack of racial inclusiveness. This effort, directed by and based upon this resolution of the Board of Trustees, will be vigorously implemented by Committees of the Board and the Staff of the Museum.
The action steps enumerated below will achieve important goals which will be specified and reviewed by the Board of Trustees on an annual basis.
1. Increasing frequency of exhibitions presenting art and experiences that will appeal to historically marginalized segments of our society
2. Increasing focus on rebalancing our permanent collection by adding acquisitions created by artists whose cultural heritages are African, Latino, Indigenous, Asian, and other underrepresented groups
3. Increasing effective leadership of the Board of Trustees by adding a significant group of leaders of color
4. Increasing the capabilities of the Museum’s Staff as a direct result of improved recruitment of employees of color
5. Increasing community engagement with programs which provide learning opportunities that resonate with the wide variety of people in our region
6. Increasing relevant communications to New London communities through active collaborations, social media, and targeted media advertisements
7. Increasing funding earmarked for exhibitions, collection acquisitions, and community programs in support of the Museum’s multicultural aspirations
8. Increasing budgetary allocations and fiscal management to enable and further all of the goals specified above
The museum has chosen to not publish the metric criteria for success during the MAP’s first year, largely because its planning cycles tend to be fairly long-ranging; because of that, what are in fact ambitious goals, could be read subjectively by some as overly modest. This policy and its implementation, however, will be an essential element in achieving the core mission of the Lyman Allyn as it moves forward.
