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Advancing Change: Retaining BIPOC Talent in Museums
Virtual Summit on Diversity
On Thursday, September 22, 2022 the Saint Louis Art Museum hosted a free, virtual summit to explore the critical changes museums and cultural institutions must make to attract, support, and retain BIPOC talent.
Advancing Change: Retaining BIPOC Talent in Museums included a keynote address by Dr. Kelli Morgan, who discussed anti-racist approaches and practices in art museums today. Three alumnae of the Bearden Fellowship—Channon M. Dillard, Dr. Nenette Luarca-Shoaf, and Dr. Cherise Smith—also discussed their experiences developing careers in curatorial, education, and interpretation departments, among other arts-related fields.
This virtual program was recorded and an archived version can be watched below.
Sessions and Speakers
Welcome
Summit welcome by Min Jung Kim, the Barbara B. Taylor Director of the Saint Louis Art Museum.
Keynote Address
Kelli Morgan
Kelli Morgan, PhD, is the inaugural director of curatorial studies at Tufts University. A curator, educator, and social justice activist who specializes in American art and visual culture, her scholarly commitment to the investigation of anti-blackness within those fields has demonstrated how traditional art history and museum practice work specifically to uphold white supremacy.
Besides her own curatorial experience, she mentors emerging curators and regularly trains staff at various museums to foster anti-racist approaches in collection building, exhibitions, community engagement, and fundraising. Over the past year, Morgan has become a leading and influential voice in bolstering anti-racist work in art museums. She has held curatorial positions at the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, Birmingham Museum of Art, and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and teaching positions at Wayne State University, the University of Michigan, and the Tyler School of Art at Temple University
She earned her doctorate in Afro-American studies and a graduate certificate in public history–museum studies from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2017.
Kelli Morgan
Panel Discussion
Channon M. Dillard
Channon M. Dillard was raised in Lansing, Michigan. After high school, she matriculated to Hampton University, in Hampton, Virginia and obtained an undergraduate degree in art in 1993 and a master’s degree in museum studies in 1997. During her graduate studies, she was a recipient of a graduate asistantship through Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Fund. She completed her graduate internship at the Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts and served as the 1997-1998 Romare Bearden Fellow at the Saint Louis Art Museum.
Each opportunity provided varied departmental experiences, but her heart remained in education. She joined the education department of the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia and remained from 2000 to 2012 as Manager of School & Family Program/Museum Educator for Children & Families. Her experiences provided opportunities to present at the National Alliance of African & African American Art Support Groups Annual Conference–Navigating the Mainstream (2006), Virginia Association of Museums Annual Conference (2007), and National Art Education Association Annual Conference (2008). Professionally, she attended the Teaching Institute in Museum Education–Chicago (2009).
When the Chrysler Museum closed its doors for a year of renovation, she transitioned into healthcare. She currently is the Assistant Director of Rehab with Innovative Healthcare at Wonder City Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Hopewell, Virginia. Her love of art remains as she maintains memberships with local museums.
Nenette Luarca-Shoaf
Nenette Luarca-Shoaf, PhD, is managing director of learning and engagement at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, currently under construction in Los Angeles.
In her practice, Luarca-Shoaf aims to demystify museums, to activate art history so that it feels relevant to diverse communities, and to create bridges between scholarly research, creative practice, and public discourse. She was previously the director of adult learning and associate curator of interpretation at the Art Institute of Chicago and a co-curator of the exhibition, Navigating the West: George Caleb Bingham and the River, a touring exhibition organized by the Saint Louis Art Museum and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art.
She earned a doctorate from the University of Delaware in the art and visual culture of the United States and a master’s degree in the humanities from the University of Chicago. Luarca-Shoaf has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Ursinus College and she has held positions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the University of Minnesota’s Institute for Advanced Study. She was the 2000–2001 Romare Bearden Fellow at the Saint Louis Art Museum.
Cherise Smith
Cherise Smith, PhD, is the Joseph D. Jamail Chair in African American Studies in the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where she is affiliated with art history. Her research centers on African American art, the history of photography, performance, and contemporary art. Smith completed her doctorate at Stanford University.
She is the author of Michael Ray Charles: Studies in Blackness (University of Texas Press, 2020), which won the Charles C. Eldredge Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in American Art from the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Smith serves on the editorial boards of American Art and Art Journal and the advisory board of the Archives of American Art Journal. Her research has been supported by the Getty Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African American Research at Harvard University.
Smith is also the founding executive director of the Art Galleries at Black Studies at the University of Texas. She has worked in the curatorial departments of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Saint Louis Art Museum, where she was the inaugural Romare Bearden Fellow in 1992–93.
More Information
Romare Bearden Graduate Museum Fellowship
The Bearden Fellowship is a nearly 30-year program that has been hailed as a national model for increasing diversity at museums, cultural institutions, and arts organizations.
Contact Us
To learn more about the summit, future events, or the Romare Bearden Graduate Museum Fellowship, contact our Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at diversity@slam.org.