UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The College of Earth and Mineral Sciences (EMS) Museum and Art Gallery is one of 10 small museums recently selected to participate in the American Alliance of Museums’ pilot season of its new Small Museums Accreditation Academy.
“We are honored to have our museum be selected as one of the few entities accepted for participation in the Small Museums Accreditation Academy. This is a major achievement and this process will help us move toward accreditation,” said Julianne Snider, the museum’s assistant director of exhibits and collections. “The EMS Museum has been working toward fulfilling the requirements of accreditation and acceptance into the Academy is not only recognition of our work to date but recognition of our commitment to excellence.”
Accreditation is a museum field’s mark of distinction and accreditation offers high-profile, peer-based validation of a museum’s operations and impact.
“This is a very exciting step along the journey,” said Russ Graham, the museum’s director of exhibits and senior research associate of collections. “We should be able to apply for accreditation within a year and if we are accredited, which I fully expect we will be, we will be the first museum on the University Park campus that has been accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.”
The Small Museums Accreditation Academy is a new initiative funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. The yearlong readiness program is designed to make the accreditation process more accessible to smaller institutions. At the end of the program, the participating museums will emerge with a stronger culture of excellence and be poised to apply for accreditation.
“The limited staff and resources of small museums do not preclude them from being operationally excellent and having tremendous impact on their communities," said American Alliance of Museums President and Chief Executive Officer Laura L. Lott. "I'm excited to welcome these 10 museums to our new program as they take a major step toward being recognized by the field for that excellence."
To learn more about the EMS Museum & Art Gallery, visit www.ems.psu.edu/outreach/museum.