Small Museums Scholarships
2018 AASLH Annual Meeting and Online Conference
Kansas City, MO – September 26-29
DEADLINE: June 8
The American Association for State and Local History will hold its Annual Meeting and Online Conference in Kansas City, MO from September 26-29, 2018. This year’s theme is Truth or Consequences. Museums and history sites have been ranked among America’s most trusted institutions in an age where trust continues to erode and truth sometimes becomes murky. Our history organizations maintain the trust if we continue to tell the truth. But what is truth when our work is based on interpretation of the historical evidence and interpretations change? How do people know what to believe?
Unfortunately, many working in our nation’s small museums feel as if we can only dream of attending this meeting. In a perfect world, boards would grant every request to fund our professional development. Institutions of modest means, however, may not have the resources to help us become effective stewards of our community’s memory.
Websites, listservs, and social media constantly offer new sources of technical and psychological support, but nothing is better than the face-to-face fellowship of sharing survival strategies. Every year, increasing numbers of Annual Meeting sessions address issues specifically affecting small museums. These sessions can be as practical and wide-ranging as training, marketing, and strategic planning. Other sessions focus on creative ways to forge and re-energize relationships with the surrounding community.
Now in its twelfth year, AASLH’s Small Museums Committee is offering scholarships to any AASLH members who are full-time, part-time, paid, or volunteer employees of small museums. Each $700 scholarship will cover the cost of both the conference registration and the Small Museums luncheon. Any remaining funds may be used to offset travel and/or lodging expenses. Acceptance of the scholarship is contingent upon recipients submitting a post to the AASLH Big Ideas for Small Museums blog about their Annual Meeting experience.
To qualify, the applicant must work for a museum with a budget of $250,000 or less. They also must either be an individual AASLH member or work for an institutional member.
The deadline for applications is June 8. The committee will email award winners by June 29. For questions, please contact Bruce Teeple, Small Museum Scholarship Subcommittee Chair at [email protected], or Aja Bain, AASLH Program and Publications Coordinator, at [email protected] or 615-320-3203.
