MAA Conference

Mutual Engagement: Museums and Communities

The most fundamental institutions in any town or city are banks, churches, hospitals, libraries, and post offices. These institutions meet essential needs and provide crucial services in their community, and in turn, the community looks to them for leadership. Do Arizona’s museums fit on this list? How can we get them there?

Join us at the 2014 Annual Conference as we consider the benefits of mutual engagement and explore innovative ways to actively engage your community with your museum. Discuss how to establish relationships with other organizations to address your community’s needs. Explore ideas for laying the foundation within your own institution to collaborate with new partners.

MAA’s mission is to “strengthen all of Arizona’s museums so they are recognized as essential to the fabric of their communities.” Cultivating reciprocal relationships between your museum and the audiences you serve is an important step toward sustaining both your institution and your community.

Keynote Speaker: Candace Matelic

Dr. Candace Matelic teaches and consults throughout the U.S. and Canada in the areas of community engagement, organizational development, change, and learning, creativity and innovation, and strategic interpretation and program planning. She brings over three decades of leadership experience to her current work, including directing National Landmark sites in Maryland and Hawaii, managing the visitor experience, interpretation and programs at museums in Michigan and Iowa, and directing the Cooperstown Graduate Program for a decade. She teaches regularly for the University of Victoria and numerous state and provincial museum associations.

Dr. Matelic’s consulting/planning work is distinguished by helping museums, historic sites, cultural organizations, and educational organizations engage their communities as partners, and then fundamentally transform their vision, assumptions, organizational culture, and work patterns.

Her publications include two co-authored books and 25 articles/chapters, including a chapter on community engagement for the American Association of State and Local History (AASLH) Small Museum Toolkit. Dr. Matelic holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Studies from the University at Albany, SUNY, an M.A. in History Museum Studies from SUNY Oneonta, and a BFA (Fine Arts and American Studies) from the University of Michigan.