New Faculty Engagement Group

As a university-based teaching museum, our work with faculty and students is crucial and central to our mission. To deepen and expand that work, we launched a new Faculty Engagement Working Group (FEWG) in FY21. Chaired by English Professor Paul Peppis, a Leadership Council member and Director of the UO Humanities Center, it includes a stellar group of UO faculty from across the curriculum who meet with JSMA staff to exchange ideas and discuss potential areas of collaboration. Despite the challenges of launching the group during a “remote year,” we can already see the benefits of the FEWG as a fertile source of program ideas and information exchange. We truly appreciate the FEWG faculty for working with us during a time that has stretched their energies and capacities to an unprecedented degree.

Leadership Council and Development News

I also want to say a big thanks to the members of our JSMA Leadership Council (LC) for the work we accomplished over the past two years, and offer a special thanks to LC Presidents Randy Stender and Ellen Tykeson, and Vice President Sarah Finlay for their hours of work, steadfast support, insight, and all-around good vibes. With their help, over the past two years we streamlined our committee lineup, retiring four committees and adding two new ones devoted to Education and Communications & Engagement. I’m delighted with the new structure, the members we’ve added, and the new ideas and connections both committees are bringing to the museum. I’m gratified to report as well that the LC is significantly more diverse than it has been in previous years, and we have seen the benefits of that immediately in connecting us more strongly to valued partners on and off campus. Finally, to ensure that we stay in touch with Leadership Council members even after they leave the council, we established a new Leadership Council Emeriti group, putting us back in contact with much-appreciated LC veterans both locally and nationally. I look forward to carrying that work forward in the coming years.

Fundraising and membership activities rely heavily on personal connections, contacts, events, and in-person activities. That has been challenging during the pandemic period, to put it mildly. Particularly as a new director here, I have missed that firsthand contact. Nevertheless, we have taken advantage of the widespread adoption of Zoom chats, online gatherings, and masked meetings at the museum to stay in touch with supporters. As a result, the JSMA achieved strong fundraising success over the past two years and finished Fiscal Year 2020-2021 with a small budget surplus.

Contributing to our solid bottom line, we received welcome grant support from a number of regional and national foundations over the past two years, including Art Bridges, the Coeta and Donald Barker Foundation, The Ford Family Foundation, the W.L.S. Spencer Foundation, the Oregon Arts Commission, and COVID-responsive funding from the Oregon Cultural Trust and the state of Oregon. We thank our foundation partners and look forward to working together in the coming years.