1. Summary History of the AAMC
2. The Curator's Role and AAMC's Purpose

1. Annual Meeting
2. Regional Professional Development & Receptions
3. Junior Curators
4. Travel Grants
5. President's Emergency Fund Grants
6. Professional Standards Document
7. Website
8. Annual Prizes
9. E-Newsletter
10. AAMC Efficiency & Recruitment
11. AAMC Council
12. Surveys: Membership, Salary
13. Publicity and Outreach

1. Member Recruitment
2. Museum Contributions
3. Individuals, Foundations & Trusts (AAMC Foundation)

1. SUMMARY HISTORY OF THE AAMC

   The Peabody Essex Institute in Salem was founded in 1799, the Wadsworth Athenaeum in 1842, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1870. After nearly two centuries of curatorial practice in North America, the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) has been established as North America's first professional organization for art museum curators active in all fields of scholarly pursuit.

   The AAMC, a 501(c)(6) membership organization, grew out of the Forum of Curators and Conservators at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a recognized, non-union body of more than 100 members. In response to news of staff reorganizations at several major US museums, members of the Forum created an ad hoc committee to explore the feasibility of a national organization of museum curators in 1999. Over the course of two and a half years, curators at the Metropolitan Museum-including Katharine Baetjer, Stefano Carboni, Colta Ives, Peter Kenny, and Gary Tinterow-drafted the mission statement and by-laws of the proposed organization. In April 2001, they held a meeting in New York, attended by representatives from a dozen American art museums, during which they voted the organization into existence.

   At the same time, members of the Forum's ad hoc committee worked closely with prominent members of the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), including Philippe de Montebello, Anne d'Harnoncourt, Katharine Lee Reid, and James Wood. Earlier, in autumn 2000, the Presidents Council held a formal discussion with senior curators regarding the establishment of the AAMC, the first time that curators were invited to speak to this committee. In Spring 2001, Mr. de Montebello announced the formation of the AAMC in his keynote address at a colloquium sponsored by the American Federation of Arts, and in July of that year, James Cuno, then president of the AAMD, wrote an official letter of endorsement. In June 2002, more than 300 curators from across the United States attended the first AAMC convention held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

   The AAMC has held an annual convention in each subsequent year and continues to build membership and programs. In 2006, the AAMC has a board of 18 trustees from 14 museums who comprise some of the most distinguished figures in the field; more than 500 members in the United States and Canada; and a paid administrator working in offices in New York City generously provided by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

   In early 2004, the AAMC board of trustees voted to incorporate the AAMC Foundation, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. The Foundation's mission is twofold. First, it seeks to heighten public understanding of the curator's role through lectures, symposia, published materials, and the like. Second, it awards grants to curators in order improve their ability to serve the public.

   THE CURATOR'S ROLE AND AAMC'S PURPOSE

   As trained museum professionals and art historians, curators are crucial to the art museum's core obligations: collecting, displaying, and interpreting works of art. Curators are the connoisseurs and scholars who, with the museum's director and board of trustees, develop the permanent collection. They play a key role in the collection's stewardship and preservation, as well as in its documentation. They are also the experts who guide the presentation and interpretation of works of arts, both in the permanent collection's galleries and in special exhibitions. In performing these functions, curators safeguard a part of the world's shared cultural heritage and expression, and they thus help to enrich, enliven, and ennoble public life.

   As museums play increasingly ambitious social and economic roles, other institutional departments have come to occupy a place alongside that of the curatorial. While providing new opportunities to museums and curators, this reorganization of leadership also has posed challenges. Where other functions subsume curatorial imperatives, literally muting the curatorial voice, there can be an erosion of the museum's traditional core obligations and the values that engendered them. This danger is often exacerbated by the re-allocation of resources to areas that do not support research and management of the permanent collection, and by the promotion of projects that are conceived only in terms of marketability and attendance.

   The AAMC believes that the long-term impact of these changes can be harmful to the curatorial profession, to art museums, to art, and to society. The AAMC's central purpose is to champion the curatorial profession by supporting the curator's role in shaping the art museum's mission, by articulating the curator's contribution to the long-term vitality of museums and the communities they serve, and by assisting curators in their professional development. In order to achieve these ambitions, the AAMC has devised the following three-year strategic plan with the advice of its membership, committees, and trustees.

Goals in the curatorial profession:

1. To foster the profession's cohesiveness, in part by improving communication and information-sharing among curators in all fields of research and practice.
2. To articulate a set of professional standards.
3. To develop programs that assist in curators' professional development, with special focus on junior curators, including their recruitment.
4. To maintain and increase the AAMC's membership.

Goals in the art museum:

1. To assure that the curatorial function is well-understood by trustees, administrators, and other areas within the museum.
2. To promote decision-making within museums that is informed by curatorial considerations.
3. To strengthen curators' ability to enter into an effective dialogue with museum directors, administrators, educators, and audiences.
4. To enlist museums' financial support for the AAMC.

Goals in the public sphere:

1. To make the AAMC and its concerns known to the public.
2. To raise the profile of the curator as a public intellectual, educator, and constructive voice.
3. To promote curators' interactions with their academic colleagues and with artists.

Goals in the AAMC:

1. To develop ways of assuring that AAMC's programs and other activities respond to members' wishes.
2. To improve AAMC's efficiency in both day-to-day and long-term operations.
3. To maintain financial equilibrium and to develop dependable and predictable funding streams for the AAMC and AAMC Foundation.

1. Annual Meeting
   Purpose and History: The annual meeting, open to all members, fosters the profession's cohesiveness by addressing issues of national relevance, by assisting in professional development, and by promoting dialogue and exchange among curators. To date, there have been four one-day annual meetings, all in New York City and each with an attendance of some 150 curators from across the country.

   Objectives:

   1. Use member feedback to shape programming for future meetings.
   2. Establish a media strategy for the annual meeting.
   3. Develop, update, and maintain the website's annual-meeting page.

2. Regional Professional Development Conferences and Regional Receptions
   Purpose and History: Regional conferences provide curators and other interested parties with opportunities for professional development and for networking. They also allow the AAMC to reach out to members unable to attend the annual meeting. One such conference, which addressed exhibition budgeting and provenance issues, has been held (2004, Art Institute of Chicago). Regional receptions allow curators to meet informally and to discuss issues of mutual interest. Five such receptions have taken place (2004-06, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Dallas, and Boston).

   Objectives:

   1. Draw up three-year schedules of regional conferences and regional receptions, including subjects (if relevant), hosts, scheduling, and preliminary budgets.
   2. Explore the feasibility of holding regional conferences and/or regional receptions that correspond with the travel of AAMC officers.

3. Junior Curators
   Purpose and History: The AAMC wishes to establish initiatives aimed at the retention and professional development of junior curators (assistant and associate levels). In early 2006, it instituted a program of travel grants for junior curators to travel to the annual meeting and awarded eight of these grants ($6,500 total).

   Objectives:

   1. Determine other programs that should be developed by asking junior curators what they need. One possibility is a mentoring project that introduces a junior curator to one or more senior curators in their field of specialty.

4. Professional Development Travel Grants
   Purpose and History: By 2007 the AAMC wishes also to develop an annual professional-development grant program for curators with limited travel funds. The grants may be used for purposes other than travel to the annual meeting. Curators of all ranks are eligible and do not necessarily need to be members of the AAMC.

   Objectives:

   1. Establish a pilot grant program in the autumn of 2006 to distribute $3,000 in grant funds.
   2. Based on feedback and reporting on the pilot program, refine and implement the grant program in early 2007.
   3. Fundraise for the program.

5. AAMC President's Emergency Fund Grants
   Purpose and History: This grant category was established in November of 2005 to support curators affected by Hurricane Katrina; eight grants were disbursed. In February 2006, the AAMC received $10,000 from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation along with several small member donations to expand the effort. Emergency grants are made to curators, both members and non-members, who find themselves in financial need through extraordinary circumstances. Grants are given at the president's and board's discretion and do not involve an application process.

   Objectives:

   1. Research and award grants to curators on the Gulf Coast who did not receive grants during the first disbursement.
   2. Outline the parameters for future grant distribution, the desired size of the emergency fund's reserve, and a strategy for augmenting funds available for this purpose in the future.

6. Professional Standards Document
   Purpose and History: The Professional Standards Document - scheduled for online distribution to members in May, 2006 and publication at the end of the year - describes current professional practice in such areas as research, writing, acquisition, consulting, personal collecting, and relationships with dealers, collectors, and the museum community in museums across the U.S. and Canada. As the first document of its kind, it is hoped that it will serve as a crucial resource for curators, museum administrators, artists, and other arts professionals and establish the AAMC as the most important source for information about the curatorial profession.

   Objectives:

   1. Complete the document including allowing for adequate time for member feedback.
   2. Publish the document.
   3. Create and carry out a media strategy to introduce the document to the membership, museum leadership, journalists and writers, and the public.

7. Website
   Purpose and History: The website announces the AAMC and its mission to members and the public. Currently, the site has the following members-only features (with launch dates): Membership Directory (2003), a database of 575 members from over 200 institutions; Online Discussion Forum (2004), an unmoderated, blog-like forum for the exchange of ideas; Classifieds (2004), a listing of available exhibitions and jobs; Travel Tips (May, 2005), searchable tips by members for cities around the world; Miscellaneous Resources (to be launched, 2006), including links to websites for museums, research facilities, and provenance and fundraising resources. A substantial redesign of the site, due by May of 2006, will improve ease of use.

   Objectives:

   1. Assure that the AAMC's mission and priorities are articulated clearly and prominently on the site.
   2. Regularly update the website's resources.
   3. Devise ways of generating meaningful electronic discussions among curators.
   4. Provide insight into curators' jobs to the public and introduce members to fellow curators.
   5. Assure that the AAMC (www.artcurators.org) is better recognized by such search engines as Google and Yahoo.
   6. Develop an evaluation tool to quantify the site's effectiveness.

8. AAMC Annual Prizes
   Purpose and History: The annual prizes - awarded at the annual meeting and open to all members in good standing - celebrate curatorial excellence with non-cash awards for best book; best article or catalogue entry; and best exhibition or installation. In 2006, publication prizes are awarded by juries selected by the Prize Committee; awards for best exhibitions or installations are divided by time zones (Eastern; Central; and Mountain and further west) and are voted on by the entire membership. The prizes represent a unique opportunity to generate attention for the awardees, their museums, and the AAMC.

   Objectives:

   1. Revisit the structure of the prizes annually, and make recommendations to improve the visibility of the prize system to members and to raise the prestige of the prizes.
   2. Arrange to highlight both past prizes and future nominations on the website.
   3. Devise and execute a media strategy for announcing the prizes publicly.

9. E-Newsletter
   Purpose and History: The e-newsletter, edited by the Director, is a monthly members' benefit that contains news of AAMC activities as well as of publications, exhibitions, and events within the profession. The newsletter includes links to the AAMC website, where members can provide feedback and receive further information about certain topics. The newsletter has been published regularly since 2005.

   Objectives:

   1. Create a procedure for soliciting monthly 'Museum News' from members.
   2. Enlist the aid of trustees and the Collections Committee in submitting newsletter articles or queries.
   3. Create an incentive program, including a special member benefits section, to garner more interest in the newsletter.

10. Efficiency and Recruitment of Trustees, Officers, Committees, and staff
    History: Trustees and Officers: Under the original by-laws, all trustees and officers were to rotate off the board at the same time. In 2005, a staggered rotation system was adopted to improve board continuity. There have been two elections to determine officers (president, vice president, treasurer, and secretary). Committees: The same elections determined the composition of the following committees, all staffed by members: Membership, Museum Collections and Exhibitions, Annual Prizes, Professional Development and Conferences, Professional Standards, and Website. Three additional committees are staffed by trustees: Executive, Finance, and Strategic Planning. Staff: In 2006, one full-time director is responsible for all day-to-day operations of the AAMC and its Foundation; she is assisted by two part-time unpaid interns.

    Objectives:

    1. Make recommendations to improve the recruitment and orientation processes for trustees, and the recruitment process for the president and Executive Committee for implementation in 2007 and beyond.
    2. Develop a formal recruiting and orientation system for both committee chairs and for members.
    3. Devise a strategy to assure the energetic involvement of committee members.
    4. Define yearly administrative staffing needs, the budgetary consequences, and funding opportunities.

11. AAMC Council
    Purpose and History: The AAMC Council was conceived in 2002 as a 'house of representatives' that was to serve as an advisory body to the board; members were elected at their home institutions based on the size of those institutions' curatorial staffs (1 Council member per 10 curators). In 2005, a restructuring was proposed in which the AAMC contacted one curator at each member museum to serve as a liaison to facilitate communication to and feedback from local curators, and to help locally to carry out projects. Election cycles and procedures will be determined within each institution.

    Objective:

    1. Define the types of routine assistance that Council members will be asked to provide (i.e., help with membership drives, member surveys, museum contributions, and the like).
    2. Notify current Council members and then all AAMC members of the new structure and responsibilities, and hold elections.
    3. Begin to use Council members regularly by late 2006.

12. Surveys: Membership and Salary
    Purpose and History: In 2006, the AAMC will release two surveys: one that gauges members' interests for AAMC programming and services and another that analyzes museum salaries, based on the AAMD salary survey.

    Objectives:

    1. Complete the salary survey and develop a strategy for releasing it to both members and the public in May, 2006.
    2. Analyze the members' survey data, incorporate the results into future programming and service features, and post both the survey results and AAMC's response online.

13. Publicity and Outreach
    Purpose and History: In Spring 2005, the trustees identified a publicity and outreach strategy as crucial to achieving AAMC's goals. The main message that the AAMC wishes to communicate, both within and outside of the museum, is that the curator is essential to the long-term vitality of museums and the communities they serve. Another goal is to articulate more clearly the AAMC's mission and value. The vehicles for communication will include speaking engagements, reactions to breaking news in print and non-print media, and articles about curators and their profession in both professional and general publications.

    Objectives:

    1. Write a comprehensive communication plan.
    2. Develop a strategy to gather information about how others outside the profession perceive curators and their roles and responsibilities.

1. Member Recruitment
   Objective:
   1. Develop a complete list of North American museum curators.
   2. Devise and execute a strategy for annual membership drives that target new members to the AAMC

2. Museum Contributions
   Objective:
   1. Develop and implement a plan for increasing the number of museums that contribute to the AAMC.

3. Individuals, Foundations, and Trusts (AAMC Foundation)
   Objectives:
   1. Develop strategies for fund-raising in all areas, including AAMC programs that require support, likely sources for this support, and responsible parties to make pitches and write applications.
   2. Make a minimum of six funding requests to individual donors each year.
   3. Write a minimum of six foundation grant applications each year.