Andrew Hibel, HigherEdJobs: Dr. Schroth, please explain the career path that led to your position at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.
Sarah Schroth, Ph.D., Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University: My first exposure to museum work was during an internship at the Kimbell Art Museum when I was a graduate student. It was so exciting to apply all I had been learning in art history to the actual art object, that I fell in, love with museum work. When I finished my Ph.D. at the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU, I landed in North Carolina, first as the curator for the Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, then at the Duke University art museum as curator, senior curator, interim director, and finally director.
Hibel: What are some of your major leadership responsibilities?
Schroth: Raising money is every museum director’s job these days. I am responsible for the day-to-day management of operations and overseeing 30 staff members and the budget. I am often the spokesperson for the arts at Duke, working closely with administrators, faculty, art and art history department, and I am chairman of the President’s Art Committee. I represent the Nasher Museum in the community. Keeping members of the community board and the national Board of Advisors engaged and excited about what the museum is doing takes leadership skills.
Hibel: The Nasher Museum of Art is celebrating 10 years at Duke. What are some of the major accomplishments the museum has achieved?
Schroth: Nearly one million visitors have entered our doors. We’ve produced more than 65 exhibitions. Many exhibitions originating at the Nasher have been widely acclaimed and gained national press. The Nasher Museum partnered with international and U.S. major museums, such as The Tate London, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and LACMA. This year one of our exhibitions (Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist) will have its final venue at the new Whitney. Our education department has been very active: approximately 10,000 schoolchildren come every year, and we have begun a new program for Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers. The Nasher has integrated itself into the intellectual life of the university by offering internship classes and opening “study storage” to faculty and students across disciplines.
Hibel: What are some of the major goals you hope to achieve for the museum in the next decade?
Schroth: Increase endowments for the future health of the institution and expand the museum by creating a “museum without walls,” that is, a sculpture park with separate sculpture gardens surrounding the Nasher. Another goal is to continue to offer groundbreaking exhibitions of contemporary cutting edge art, with a focus on artists of color, but to also focus on the permanent collection by devoting more space within the museum for its display, improving storage areas, and conducting a conservation survey.
Hibel: How does the art museum on campus benefit the Duke community as well as the Durham community at large?
Schroth: The success of the Nasher Museum has led to a new arts initiative at Duke. The president, Richard Brodhead, always remarks that the Nasher was the milestone for the transformation of the arts at Duke. Prior to Duke’s investment in building a new museum on campus, there was far less emphasis on the arts. The Durham community benefits as recipients of the rich cultural life the Nasher has brought to their city. The Nasher is the only art museum in Durham, and the citizens think of it as theirs.
Hibel: What differences in focus does a campus museum have compared to a museum not located on university grounds?
Schroth: Faculty and students are our primary customers, even before the public. If we serve students well, we are doing our job, but students and faculty will not come to the museum unless there are exciting exhibitions, programs, and a good permanent collection that they can use for teaching.
Hibel: The financial recession of 2008-2009 had an impact on many departments on campus including museums. A 2012 Kress Foundation study helped to qualitatively show how the campus art museum creates value on campus. What are your thoughts on how campus museums can best demonstrate this value to the university community?
Schroth: One way value can be demonstrated is by the number of students who become involved in the arts, in their careers, or later as collectors and donors. If the museum is convincing faculty to use the collections and exhibitions for instruction, the university as a whole will understand the significance of the campus art museum.
Hibel: How do faculty use the museum for teaching other disciplines?
Schroth: Language classes come to see works produced in the countries they are studying, as embodiments of that country’s history, culture, and values, which they discuss in front of the art in the language of the course. Science classes study the way the brain reacts to color, faces, and shapes. Women studies classes study work by women artists.
Hibel: What advice would you give to a new professional aspiring to work at a campus museum?
Schroth: Figure out if you are an appropriate fit for a university environment, if you have a personality that can be open to the value of knowledge-based learning in a university setting. I believe it is important to have a well-rounded command of art history, so graduate work is a must. You have to feel you are an equal to the faculty and administration.
Hibel: What different advice do you have for a higher education professional to succeed once they are in that position?
Schroth: Learn the university community, read its strategic plan, introduce yourself to students and faculty, conduct a campus listening tour to hear what others think about how the museum relates to their lives and their teaching.
Hibel: What specific associations or higher education groups do you recommend individuals in the art museum community become involved in to enhance their professional development?
Schroth: The American Alliance of Museums (AAM), The Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC), The Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), The Association of Academic Museums and Galleries (AAMG-L), and other regional university art museum colleagues and associations, and the Museum Trustee Association.
Hibel: What is the most rewarding part of working in an art museum on a college campus?
Schroth: For me, it is helping faculty members realize their research in the form of an exhibition, i.e., by allowing them to guest-curate. Dealing with students is a real joy, seeing their excitement and appreciation of the museum, watching how it changes their ideas and their lives. Having the backing of the administration is rewarding, because you feel part of a bigger picture.