Job Description

Betsy Main Babcock Director of Interpretation & Program

Reynolda House Museum of American Art, an affiliate of Wake Forest University

Winston-Salem, North Carolina

*Please include a cover letter with this application*

Position Summary: The Betsy Main Babcock Director of Interpretation & Program serves as senior Museum curator and is responsible for overseeing and supervising the interpretation, programming, education, and research of the Museum’s American Art, Estate Archives, and Historic House collections. Additionally, this senior staff member supervises the heads of the curatorial, education, public programs and library/archives departments while serving on the senior leadership team of the Museum. The position reports to the Museum’s Executive Director.

Primary Purpose: Reynolda House Museum of American Art, affiliated with Wake Forest University, is seeking candidates for the Betsy Main Babcock Director of Interpretation & Program. The ideal candidate is a leader and mentor for the institution, the University, and the community, a talented and proven teacher-scholar, a skilled communicator, and passionate about engaging the public in a journey of learning about American art, history, and culture through interdisciplinary exploration in the Museum.

Essential Functions:

  • Serves as an inspiring leader for educators, curators, researchers, and programming staff.  Helps fulfill the Museum’s mission and impact through thoughtful scholarship, creative interpretation, meaningful dialogue, and courageous leadership.
  • Functions as a member of the senior leadership team that advises the executive director and collaborates on Museum-wide decisions including programming, planning, budgeting, and fundraising.
  • Researches the Museum collections and produces new scholarship to support, exhibitions, marketing, documentation and publications.
  • Identifies, develops, and originates exhibitions or otherwise delegates their development to curatorial staff, educators, and/or guest curators (faculty or other scholars).
  • Instructs and oversees all creative aspects of educational and public programming.
  • Supervises all aspects of personnel management and directs and oversees program and budget of the interpretation and program division.
  • Works collaboratively with other departments to plan thoughtful, engaging, fiscally prudent, and successful exhibitions and programs, and promotes and interprets the collections in meaningful ways to reach audiences on-site and online.
  • Collaborates with Wake Forest University faculty and students, area arts organizations, and local universities to enhance the public’s understanding and appreciation of American art, history, and culture, and strengthen the community’s connection to Reynolda.
  • Cultivates relationships with collectors, donors, and arts institutions.
  • Maintains supportive, professional, and collaborative relationships with peers in American art museums and historic house museums to advance potential partnerships in programs and exhibitions.
  • Travels for professional and institutional development.

Education/Experience:

Ph.D. degree in American art history or American studies with seven years of curatorial and/or interpretation experience in an art museum or university art museum with a demonstrated interest in interdisciplinary work. M.A. degree in art history or museum studies with ten or more years of practical experience or equivalent may be considered.

In order to be considered for this position, you must apply through our website.please click on this link: http://bit.ly/1XHEs9d 

 

Job Requirements

Required Skills and Competencies:

  • Excellent teaching and written communication skills for broad public appeal and for more specialized audiences.
  • Demonstrated ease and comfort in cultivating the interests of and relationships with collectors, donors, scholarly peers, media, general public audiences, and institutions.
  • Proven personnel and project management with five years of supervisory and leadership experience.
  • Demonstrated excellence and collegiality in leadership positions.
  • Understanding of the significance of the institution’s American art collection, historic house, archives, and cultural landscape.
  • Knowledge of innovative and best practices in interpretation, education, and public programming in an art museum and/or historic house setting.
  • Demonstrated research, scholarship and connoisseurship in the evaluation, conservation, and exhibition of American art.
  • Knowledge of preservation practices and public history interpretation in a historic house and cultural landscape setting.

Desired Skills or Competencies:

  • Excellent organizational and interpersonal skills.
  • Familiarity with strategic and institutional planning.
  • Exhibition development, public programming, interpretive planning experience, professional publications, and some academic teaching.
  • Experience in applying for national grants.
  • Proficiency in relevant computer programs and databases.

About Reynolda House Museum of American Art:

The Museum opened to the public in 1967. It holds a premier collection of American art ranging from the colonial period to the twentieth century. The collection is extraordinary for its quality and condition, and provides audiences with a thorough survey of major developments in American art in a home-like setting. The historic house, sited on 129 acres, is part of what was once a 1,000+ acre American country estate.  It was completed in 1917 for Katharine Smith Reynolds and her husband Richard Joshua Reynolds, founder of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, and remained in the family until the early 1960s. In 2005, the Museum added a 30,000 square foot education wing, doubling the size of the Museum and providing a 3,000 square foot gallery for changing exhibitions, an auditorium, and studio classrooms for educational programs. Two galleries in the historic house feature smaller exhibitions focusing on the Museum’s collections. The Reynolda House Archives, which includes architectural drawings, documents, oral histories, and photographs, was established in 1993 to support the interpretation of topics relevant to the historic site by Museum staff, Wake Forest University scholars, and outside researchers.

In 2013, the Museum launched a new website which made available the Museum’s collections online and presented new platforms through which to achieve impact. The site was recognized in 2014 as the People’s Choice for Best of the Web at the Museums and the Web international conference. Appropriate use of technology in interpretation, education, and marketing is an increasing priority at the Museum.

In 2002, Reynolda House affiliated with Wake Forest University. The Museum maintains a separate 501(c)(3) status and has a governing Board of Directors. Its annual operating budget is approved by both the Museum Board of Directors and the University Board of Trustees. The Museum’s Executive Director, Allison Perkins, was recently named Associate Provost for Reynolda House and Reynolda Gardens; this move brings over 100 acres of historic Reynolda estate property under unified leadership. The executive director reports to the Reynolda House Board of Directors and the President of the University, with operational connections to the University’s top cabinet-level administrators. In addition to the Board of Directors, the Museum has a National Advisory Council (which advises the executive director and Museum staff on special initiatives, much like a board of visitors). The Museum has been accredited by the American Alliance of Museums continually since 1972. For more information, visit reynoldahouse.org.

In order to be considered for this position, you must apply through our website.please click on this link: http://bit.ly/1XHEs9d

APPLY FOR THIS JOB