Museum Professional Training: East-West Collaborations

Deborah Howes, United States , Phyllis Hecht, USA

Asia is currently experiencing a significant rate of growth in museum construction, renovation, and expansion. Museums are enlarging their collections, enhancing their exhibition and educational programs, and exploring new technologies. Museum professionals throughout Asia, like their global counterparts, are facing the critical issues and challenges of 21st-century museum practice including new methods of management, visitor experience, outreach, and exhibition development, as well as questions about the museum’s role in the global economy and on the world stage. The need for innovative international museum training is essential, and it is a unique moment for museums and universities worldwide to find ways to collaborate across boundaries. This panel of experts will discuss the challenges and opportunities of creating educational activities and curriculum focusing on how the use of online tools can support these global objectives. The participants will describe case studies and explore, along with the audience, ideas for new models of cross-cultural collaboration. The goal of the panel will be to foster a dialogue and exchange of ideas that will lead to critical advances in East-West partnerships in museum professional training.

Jay Levenson, Director, International Program, The Museum of Modern Art, NY

Phyllis Hecht, Director, Master of Arts Program in Museum Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, D.C.

HO Hing-Kay Oscar, Associate Professor of Practice in Cultural Management, Department of Cultural and Religious Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China

Deborah Howes (chair), Director of Digital Learning, The Museum of Modern Art & Adjunct Professor, Master of Arts Program in Museum Studies, Johns Hopkins University