By Leah W. Craig, Deputy Director, Kentucky Historical Society
Ethical challenges at museums and historic sites frequently make headlines. While it may be easy to form opinions from a distance, facing these dilemmas firsthand is typically far more complicated and difficult to navigate. Have you or the institution you have worked with ever encountered an ethical dilemma? Presenters for a session titled “What Would You Do When Faced with an Ethical Dilemma?” at the upcoming 2025 AASLH Annual Conference are seeking real-world scenarios to help guide the discussion.
The session presenters are asking you to share brief, de-personalized scenarios (2–5 sentences) that they can use as “hypothetical” examples during the session. The goal is to explore the complexities of ethical decision-making—not to criticize any individual or organization. Your submission will be anonymized by the presenters. Your name, email, or organization information will not be used, and they ask that you change the names of people, locations, organizations, or other identifiers in your submission.
Scenarios may relate to any area of work, including collections, fundraising, exhibitions, interpretation, education, marketing, governance, or facilities.
Please submit your “hypothetical” scenario to [email protected] by August 22nd.
Thank you for helping create meaningful and practical conversations that benefit us all.
