2021 Session Tracks
2021 Session Tracks
To address the changing needs of our field, we have made some adjustments to our session tracks. Click on the track title to view topic ideas within each track. Updates to the session tracks this year include removing the separate DEAI track. Instead, DEAI will be incorporated throughout all tracks. Rolled-over 2020 proposals originally in the DEAI track will be sorted appropriately into other tracks by the National Program Committee.
Leadership, Boards, & Governance (previously Boards & Governance)
- CEOs
- Boards/Trustees
- Governance/Committees
- Inclusion and equity
- Recruiting for diversity
- Facing Change
- DEAI
- Ethics
- Strategic planning
- Mission statements, goals, and values
- Accreditation
- Anti-racism
- Accessibility
Collections & Curatorial Practice
- Collections policies
- Deaccessioning
- Cultural property
- Best practices
- Disaster recovery
- Collections preservation
- Collections access and ethics
- Collections Management
- Ancestry & Heritage
- Co-curation
- Scholarship
- Censorship
- Representation
- Creating accessible and diverse content
Community Engagement & Impact
- Audience research and evaluation
- Visitor services
- Measuring engagement (analytics and data)
- Engaging audiences during and post-pandemic
- Fostering new engagement practices
- Virtual community engagement
- Culturally specific communities and topics
- Culturally specific museums
- Advocating for communities and introducing new narratives
- Engaging ethnic specific communities
- Empathy
- Cognitive disabilities
- Government Relations, advocacy, and civic engagement
- International and global
- Community collaboration
- Ancestry and heritage
- Anti-racism
- Health and well-being
- Post-pandemic audience
- Activism and social justice
Education & Public Programming (previously Education/Audience Research & Evaluation)
- Museum studies
- Best practices
- K-12 education
- Adult learning
- Distance learning and engagement
- Docents
- Educators
- Collaboration with educational institutions
- Educating new and/or diverse audiences
- Creating learning-driven experiences
- Research
- Interpretation
Exhibition Planning & Design
- Creating accessible and diverse content
- Impact on diverse audiences
- Virtual exhibitions
- Exhibition planning & design in a post-pandemic era
- Exhibition development (change in demographic audiences, timelines for exhibit display, long-term development)
- Exhibitions in response to current events, climate change, politics, controversial topics
- Traveling Exhibitions
- Interpretive exhibitions (music, dance, culinary)
- Multi-lingual exhibitions
- Immersive installations
Revenue & Development (previously Finance, Management & Administration)
- Sustainable business models pre- and post-pandemic
- Leveraging museum assets to attract sponsorship and support for programs
- Portfolio revenue streams
- For-profit museums and the impacts of the pandemic
- Financial sustainability
- Financial recovery
- Membership and fundraising
- Endowments
- Virtual fundraising and revenue
- Donor relations and ethics
- Mergers
- Mutual aid
- New sources of revenue (e.g. online mask sales, booking virtual experiences, revenue-generating community partnerships)
- Conversations about racial equity and inclusive fundraising
Operations, Human Resources, & Volunteers (previously Human Resources & Professional Development)
- Facilities
- Institutional finance management
- General institutional administration
- Health and safety in the post-pandemic era
- Risk management
- Salary and compensation
- Career management and planning
- Volunteer management and recovery
- Environmental sustainability
- Disaster preparedness
- General planning for reopening (and closing, second reopenings)
- Supplies
- Safety training
- Liability
- Staffing decisions
- Equity
- Emotional well-being and self-care
- Accreditation
- Succession Planning
- Museums as public assets
Marketing & Communications
- Social Media
- Brand design
- Inclusive strategies, methods, and tools
- Audience connections
- Community engagement
- Ad influence
- Crisis communications
- Public communications in the post-pandemic environment
- Public relations
- Guest/visitor experiences with online and timed ticketing, touchless transactions
Technology & Innovation
- AR & VR
- Digital accessibility
- Immersive experience
- Decolonizing through digital
- Digitizing collections
- Exhibition interactives
- Big data
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Digital skills building
- Digital infrastructure
- Organizational readiness