Half a century of OMCA volunteer programs have just been turned on their heads in a process museums across the country are facing. Here’s why.
For a half century, the Oakland Museum of California has relied on a dedicated volunteer force of some 200 docents to guide visitors, including school kids, through its galleries, sharing their expertise and interpretation of the California-themed art, history and natural science artifacts on display.
It sounds risky for any nonprofit to jettison a longstanding volunteer program. But OMCA, like museums around the country, faces a “changing landscape” for how it creates exhibitions and education programs. For many museums, this process intensified in the wake of “Black Lives Matter” protests that erupted after the 2020 police killing of George Floyd.
With these jobs, the museum essentially hopes to recruit new volunteers who don’t just “look like me, older and White,” said Dena Watson-Lamprey, a former teacher from Berkeley who has worked as a docent for 12 years, mostly in the museum’s schools program. “We need to really be very thoughtful in how we reach out to different communities,” continued Watson-Lamprey, a former president of the docent council.
As Forgarty acknowledged in her letter, talk about discontinuing the docent program over the past 18 months has upset some long-time volunteers, who may feel that their expertise is no longer valued.
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