by editor Phillippa Pitts
Just home from Newport, RI and the 95th New England Museum Association Conference. NEMA is a fantastic organization that really brings together a diverse group of museums for three days of sessions, workshops, frantic business card swapping, and networking. People walk into the conference looking for someone who knows about volunteer recruitment or outreach to visitors with low vision. And we all leave exhausted but feeling incredibly professionally developed.
What’s great about coming to NEMA as a Tufts Museum Studies student is the network of Tufts faculty, alumni, and fellow students. They’re not just represented on panels and with peer institutions. They’re part of the conference leadership. They work for NEMA, chair its PAGs (professional affinity groups), and received fellowships and scholarships. (Thanks so much to the NEMA Board and Staff for my own Fellowship — which I’ll share more about in later posts).
As I’ve yet to master the art of being in multiple places at once, I only could participate in a fraction of the sessions, events, and conversations that occurred over the course of the week. So, look out for a number of posts from current and past Tufts students who want to share what they learned in Newport.
If you were at NEMA and I haven’t approached you yet, email tuftsmuseumblog@gmail.com. We’d love to hear what you learned, observed, or figured out over the course of the conference.
