Julie,

I'd be careful with the MAP.   I ran a school museum years ago and our superintendent had the same fearful attitude as your college president about the image of the parent institution and its reputation being reviewed by an "outsider."

In a small museum, you don't have the buffer of staff that you do in a larger institution.  Having staff frees your time to meet and manage board members and administrators in the parent institution.  As the executive director of a small institution (however you want to define it, but basically, it means the museum's top manager wears many hats and performs any job that needs to get done), you don't have time to deal with politics.  Usually the executive director is busy running the museum's activities, getting the roof repaired, cleaning the bathroom (when the janitor is out sick) -- you get the picture.

Be sure to keep open communication and a lot of communication with the MAP staff at AAM.   Make sure they send someone experienced in the operations of a similar-sized museum as your reviewer.  Communicate a lot with the reviewer and most importantly, manage your board so that they are involved in the MAP, support it, and see transparency as a good thing.

If your college president is hesitant about the process, WAIT.
Bide your time until the political climate is more conducive to your institution really benefiting from the MAP.

Cordially,
Pamela Sezgin,
Former Museum CEO
now fulltime college professor and museum consultant

=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).