Hi Jodi,

For my two cents...

It sounds(only from your query) like the problem was communication failure, not policy failure.

What you call a board, is far less important than how they are treated and how they treat you. A properly organized and informed board of "directors/trustees" leads and advises, while specifically avoiding over managing/directing. Advisement and support of the institution are their primary roles. What you call them is irrelevant.

I am wondering at the process undertaken for changing the name of the board. Your intent was to accurately reflect their capacity, but did they know the scope of their capacity before the change? Were they informed of the reasoning ahead of time? I would interpret that change as a slap in the face as well, especially if I was not consulted.

I would also question the perspective that they do not have fiduciary responsibility. Fiduciary responsibility refers to the trust the public places in a cultural organization and the people who serve it, not specifically financial or administrative controls. Whether they are "directors", "trustees", "advisors", they all have fiduciary responsibility to the public. Weakening that relationship between the institution and those who seek to serve it, in whatever capacity, damages the whole.

I would advise that your university leaders actually communicate with your "advisory" leaders to find some common ground on how to best support the institution. Any adjustment of policy should codify that relationship and create a bridge between the two groups that are clearly looking at different scenes through their binoculars, not separate them further.

And good luck.

Mark Janzen

On Fri, Mar 6, 2020 at 12:06 PM Jodi Lundgren <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hello wise ones!

I am looking for policy and procedure examples on the hiring of new Directors for AAM-accredited art museums that are university or governmental units. Specifically I'm looking for info on hiring procedures in relation to how Advisory Boards are involved and invited into the process and procedure for hiring a new museum Director.

Some background is that we had been accredited for nearly 40 years with a Board of Trustees before our last round of re-accreditation. But operationally and in terms of fiduciary responsibilities we were established by the state and designated as a unit of a state university. With the recent re-accreditation we had to clarify our governance and changed the Board title from Board of Trustees to Board of Advisors to accurately reflect their advisory but not fiduciary capacity. There was much concern over the university (who is less involved and intimate with the operations of the museum) having too much power over important decisions at the museum. We are not mainly an academic museum even though we are on a campus, we are a state museum with very public-facing programs, exhibitions, and collections. Our new policy outlined a special advisory role for the Board in selecting, with the University President, Directors for the museum. But with a recent retirement and new hire the university only invited in feedback from the Board through 3-question anonymous online surveys that were available to everyone and anyone in the public who wanted to weigh in. There were no convenings between the Board as a whole or as individuals with the hiring manager, the Provost. The Board was largely kept in the dark and their special advisory role was minimized. We are hearing frustration from several who feel alienated and dis-empowered, as if their advisory role was greatly disrespected and undermined. And their intimacy and involvement with the museum, which could have been a valuable resource in making this decision, was neglected and unaccounted for.

Please let me know on or off list if you have any specific experiences with this or policies and procedures you can share in regards to how a university collaborates (or doesn't) with a museum Advisory Board in making such an important decision for a museum's future. We'd like to be able to either justify this to the Board or offer alternative routes for the future that will keep the Advisory Board from feeling disrespected and disenfranchised from the process.

Thanks much,
Jodi Lundgren
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