The last year has been a time of reopening and reconnecting with audiences at SCMA. Our work on diversity, equity, access and inclusion has reflected this. Museum staff members have taken internal reflection and policy-building work and turned outward to focus on how visitors are experiencing the museum.

We held all-staff conversations and collected hundreds of comments from students, faculty and community members to create an updated vision and priorities for the museum. We gathered these in what we are calling a “Bridge” Strategic Plan for 2023–2025 that will carry us from our 2017–2022 Strategic Plan to our next five-year planning cycle.

The driving vision of the “bridge” plan is to enable the diverse range of Smith students to see themselves at SCMA and to feel a sense of belonging at the museum. In working toward this vision, we see our service to Smith communities as synergistic with our service to local communities. Creating a sense of belonging for Smith students of diverse experiences and perspectives will enable us to build stronger connections and engagement with our other surrounding communities.

One of the most exciting pillars of the plan is the introduction of free admission for all visitors. This huge step exemplifies our aim of fostering belonging and access and is made possible by a generous gift from Smith College alumnae Jan Fullgraf Golann ’71 and Jane Timken ’64.

The priorities of our bridge plan build on our work over the last several years, including developing organizational core values, conducting a museum-wide equity review, creating a new inclusive hiring process and introducing an updated post-baccalaureate fellowship program. We are sharing here the guiding principles for the plan as well as some key actions we anticipate taking in the next couple of years.

The relevance and vitality of this work depend on the feedback and insights we hear from museum visitors. We are enormously grateful to all those who have taken the time to share thoughts—including through email, conversations, comment cards and even some remarkable drawings visitors have created while at the museum. We look forward to another year of bringing more voices to SCMA and to fostering experiences of art in the museum galleries.
 

Guiding Principles for our “Bridge” Strategic Plan:

• Anchor actions in our organizational core values 
• Create opportunities for experimentation and shared learning 
• Prioritize Smith students as our core audience and an essential foundation for connecting to local communities 
• Achieve sustainability by acknowledging core work and new activities 
• Develop our priorities using a dynamic process  
   

Some of Our Key Actions: 

• Roll out free admission with the goal of inviting in first-time student and local
  visitors
• Pilot new display and interpretive approaches that highlight a multiplicity of perspectives and voices
• Expand visitor feedback by adding new interactive feedback stations in the museum lobby and galleries 
• Improve accessibility in the galleries by expanding seating and adding large-print labels 
• Prepare to focus on accessibility in our next five-year strategic plan by advancing research, joint learning through conferences and dialogue with campus partners 
• Develop a new exhibition-planning process that incorporates more student and staff feedback 
• Relaunch SCMA post-baccalaureate program with strengthened support and mentorship 
• Relaunch community programming and pilot new late-night hours for student programming 

top: SCMA staff gather for a DEAI meeting in December 2022 to review work accomplished over the past year. Photo by Louise Krieger