After: Re-imagining, Reinvigorating, and Resetting the Academic Art Gallery After, and Beyond

During the COVID-19 shutdowns, museums and galleries on college campuses scrambled to adapt exhibitions and public programming to a variety of virtual models that brought the art and artists to distanced viewers, helped support artists and staff members, and maintained the visibility of gallery programs on campus and beyond. After COVID restrictions receded, however, new challenges emerged: ongoing budget cuts, hybrid teaching models that mean fewer students on campus, questions about the relevance of an arts education in a new era of austerity. After years of ingenious interventions to respond to all these challenges, how can academic museum and gallery programs continue to do more with less? How are museum and gallery staffers navigating the terrain between working harder and more effectively, and letting go of programs or activities they simply can no longer support? How do museum and gallery staffers retool exhibition and public programming to respond to budget reductions, while still demonstrating their importance and relevance to the curriculum and their campus community? In this session, we will hear from arts professionals who are developing new strategies to support both artists and staffers and adapt to the shifting needs of art students, all within the context of a continuously challenging budget and campus environment.