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Syllabus

Historical Administration

History 548—Spring 2011

Thursday 6:00-8:40

Cavanaugh Hall 235

Professor: Rebecca Shrum

Office: CA 504B

Office Hours:T/W 1-2pm or by appointment

Office Telephone:274-3916

Email: (Email is always the most efficient way to contact me. If youfeel you

must leave me a voicemail, you should send me the same information by email.

I will make every effort to return your emails within 48hours. If you have asituation that needs to be addressed immediately and by phone, please send me an emailwith your phone number in it, and I will get in touch with you as soon as possible. Thisshould be reserved for time-sensitive, emergency situations.)

Skype:Please feel free to Skype me at Rebecca_Shrum_IUPUI. When you add me, please make

a notation in the space Skype provides that you are a student in History 548. Please don’t

leave me time-sensitive messages in Skype.

Course description and objectives:

This course will present a broad overview of issues that administrators who work in museums, historical societies, archives, special collection libraries, and other cultural resource agencies experience in their careers. Here, the term “administrator” applies both to the head of an organization as well as mid-level managers. In addition to discussions that are unique to agencies that collect, preserve, and share cultural resources, the class will also look broadly at trends in management techniques and leadership that apply to any non-profit organization.

After the successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

  • Identify and communicate new models for sustaining museums
  • Discuss attributes and skills that make an effective non-profit leader
  • Communicate the credentials a museum needs for accreditation
  • Assess, prioritize, and recommend strategies for setting and achieving institutional goals using professional standards
  • Identify potential controversial situations, legal and ethical issues, and long-term complications of current policies that can occur in museums and develop strategies for dealing with them
  • Understand the significance of institutional planning in maintaining a cultural institution
  • Produce the key documents a museum needs to function effectively
  • Demonstrate and describe the skills required to work effectively in a team

Policies (listed alphabetically):

Attendance is required and will be taken at class meetings. This course is based on experiential learning, built around teams, and requires your active participation. What you put into the class will determine what you get out of it. If you must miss class for illness, personal crisis, or professional commitment, please notify me as soon as possible to make arrangements for missed work. Absence from more than three classes may severely affect your final grade for the course.

Campus ResourcesIf you might require special accommodations for completion of academic assignments, please notify me within the first two class periods. I’ll make every effort to make things work for you. You may wish to contact Adaptive Educational Services (AES), Cavanaugh Hall, Suite 001E, 425 University Blvd., Indianapolis, IN 46202–5140, Tel: (317) 274–3241, TDD/TTY: (317) 278–2050, Fax: (317) 278–2051, Email: . Staff there can provide a range of assistance. For more information, see: If you have a problem you don't know how to solve, the Student Advocate Office may be of help. They will answer your questions, direct you to the appropriate departments and people, familiarize you with university policies and procedures, and give you guidance as you look at ways to solve problems and make choices. The Student Advocate Office is located in UC002 and can be contacted by phone at 278-7594 or email at . For more information, see the Student Advocate website at:

Cheating and Plagiarism The integrity of the classes offered by any academic institution solidifies the foundation of its mission and cannot be sacrificed to expediency, ignorance, or blatant fraud. Therefore, I will enforce rigorous standards of academic integrity in all aspects and assignments of this course (Statement from WVU). Students who cheat or plagiarize will receive a zero for the work in question. Further action may be pursued at the professor’s discretion. According to the Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities, and Conduct, “Cheating is considered to be an attempt to use or provide unauthorized assistance, materials, information, or study aids in any form and in any academic exercise or environment… Plagiarism is defined as presenting someone else’s work, including the work of other students, as one’s own.” For comprehensive information on IUPUI’s policy on cheating and plagiarism consult Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities, and Conduct available on-line at

Classroom Courtesy and Professionalism Please arrive on time and turn off all electronics prior to the beginning of class. It is expected that everyone in the class participate appropriately and listen respectfully during discussions and teamwork. For some of you, participating appropriately will be difficult because you may find yourself uncomfortable speaking in front of a group or think that someone else has already expressed your idea. These are skills that you will need, and this is an excellent place to practice. If you are struggling to contribute to class or team discussions, please make an appointment to speak with me about this. For others of you, maintaining an appropriate level of participation in discussions may mean not speaking as often as you might like—part of participating appropriately is giving others the chance to speak and, certainly, not always trying to be the first person to speak. If you begin to fall into this pattern, I will speak to you about it.

When we are at museums, you are in public, professional settings, and you are representing both the IUPUI Public History and Museum Studies programs and yourselves as emerging professionals. Please dress and act accordingly. As we meet in the evenings, museum professionals will mostly be coming to us. I’d like to ask everyone to dress professionally on those nights when we will have guests in our classroom as well.

Completion of Assignments In order to complete the course successfully, you must finish all of the assigned work by the last class meeting. If you do not complete all of the required work, I reserve the right to give you an “F” for the semester.

Grades Your grade in this course will be based on my assessment of:

Intellectual Autobiography (5%)This assignment should not be more than 1000 words in length. It is due to Oncourse no later than Monday, January 17th at 8am. Late assignments will be penalized one letter grade for each 24-hour period they are late and must be turned in no later than Thursday, January 20th at 8am to receive credit.

Weekly Précis (20%) Each week you will write up a summary of the reading. This can be done in an informal style and may be a combination of key points, questions, connections between the readings, etc. You must do a précis for each reading. Weekly précis must be uploaded as one Microsoft Word document to your Oncourse dropbox before class begins each week, whether or not you are attending class (before 6pm on the Thursday for which the readings are due). You must also bring a hard copy to class. Each week, I will check to make sure that you have submitted your précis, although I will spot grade précis every so often. If I do spot grade your précis, I will return a brief comment sheet and grade. The précis are one tangible way I can support the healthy functioning of your teams—by assuring that everyone has done the reading and is prepared to have a productive conversation. Late précis are not accepted for credit, BUT please note that all précis must be submitted by the last class meeting (see Completion of Assignments above). In addition to your précis, please bring a copy of all assigned reading to class each week.

Team Project (50%) This semester-long project will engage teams in creating a Business Model for a new museum. Detailed information about this project will be distributed on a separate handout. Neither the rough draft orfinal version of your team’s business model will be accepted late for credit.

Leadership Essay (15%) This essay will be both analytical and self-reflective. You should analyze what makes for effective museum leadership, presenting a clear thesis that is supported by specific examples from readings and guest speakers (at least 3). You should then reflect on your own leadership strengths and weaknesses in light of the first part of the essay. What qualities and attributes contribute to your effectiveness as a leader? What skills and knowledge do you have or hope to develop and why are they important in the context of museums today (being sure clearly to state what the “context of museums today” is in your assessment)? Late essays will be penalized 5 points (out of 100) for each 24-hour period they are late. This essay should be between 2500 and 3000 words.

Attendance and Participation (10%) The importance of attendance and participation has been articulated above. This percentage of your grade reflects my assessment of your preparation for class, attendance in class, and behavior during class.

Letter grades will be assigned in the following manner:

A + 98-100B+ 88-89 C+ 78-79 D 60-69

A 93-97B 83-87 C 73-77 F 59 and below
A- 90-92B- 80-82 C- 70-72

Incompletes As a rule, I do not give incompletes in this class because of the emphasis on team learning. Asking for an incomplete puts your entire team at a disadvantage. Having said that, there are exceptions to the rule, so if you find yourself facing overwhelming unanticipated circumstances this semester, please speak to me as soon as possible so that we can seek a remedy together. More generally, if you are concerned about falling behind or missing an upcoming deadline, please also meet with me as soon as possible.

Late Assignments For policies on late penalties, please see the description of individual assignments above.

Texts:

Falk, John H. and Beverly K. Sheppard. Thriving in the Knowledge Age: New Business Models for

Museums and Other Cultural Institutions.Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2006.

Genoways, Hugh H. and Lynne M. Ireland.Museum Administration: An Introduction. Lanham, MD:

AltaMira Press, 2003.

Harris, Donna.New Solutions for House Museums: Ensuring the Long-Term Preservation of America’s

Historic Houses.Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2007.

Written Work All work for the class must be typed, double-spaced, 10 or 12 point Times New Roman font, 1-inch margins. Please pay careful attention to the word count requirements.Written work should follow scholarly conventions of academic writing (e.g., proper citations, grammar, no contractions).The ability to express yourself clearly is a key ingredient to successful leadership. Please take this component of the course seriously. My best advice here: proofread, proofread, proofread. You may use any common style guide you wish (e.g., MLA, Chicago, AAA), as long as you use it consistently. I am most familiar with Chicago.

Class Schedule. This schedule is tentative. Changes will be posted on Oncourse at least two weeks in advance, except in an unavoidable circumstance (i.e., when a guest speaker has to reschedule).

Week 1: January 13, 2011

Introduction to the Course

Assignment Due: Intellectual Autobiography. Due Monday, January 17 by 8am to your Oncourse dropbox. Assignment details are posted under Oncourse Resources. The instructions for this assignment are on Oncourse under assignments.

Week 2: January 20, 2011

Leadership Case Study 1: John Herbst, President and CEO of Indiana Historical Society. President Herbst will be with us from 6:00-7:15. Please do not arrive late to class.

Introduction to Teams/Project

Assigned Reading:

  • Museum Administration: An Introduction, pages 55-71 (on page 55, begin at “Does Anyone Want this Job?”);
  • The Fifth Discipline, Chapter 9, “Mental Models,” Chapter 10, “SharedVision,” and Chapter 11, “Team Learning.” Available on Oncourse;
  • James Chung, “Museums & Society 2034: Trends and Potential Futures,” available at aam-us.org/upload/museumssociety2034.pdf;
  • John H. Falk and Beverly K. Sheppard, Thriving in the Knowledge Age, Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.
  • Begin to consult the AAM’s accreditation standards, information available at the AAM website and in the document, “A Higher Standard,” available on Oncourse.

Assignment Due: A one-page individual proposal for your team’s museum, identifying building type, collection, and location (bring 6 copies to class). Take into consideration the Chung and Falk/Sheppard readings in conceptualizing your museum. Be sure to address how you have done this in your proposal. Also, please indicate which two “team choice” components you are interested in pursuing and why. Late assignments will not be accepted. If you aren’t going to be in class this week, it is your responsibility to make sure that Professor Shrum receives 6 copies of your proposal before class begins.

Week 3: January 27, 2011

Thriving in the Knowledge Age; Mission and Vision

Assigned Reading:

  • John H. Falk and Beverly K. Sheppard, Thriving in the Knowledge Age (all);
  • Robert Janes, Museums in a Troubled World, Chapter 3, “It’s a jungle in here: Museums and their self-inflicted challenges,” and Chapter 4, “Debunking the marketplace,”available on Oncourse (Chapters 1 and 5 from Museums in a Troubled Worldare also available on Oncourse if you find his ideas interesting and want to read more);
  • Milton J. Bloch,“Mission as Measure: Second Thoughts,” available at
  • James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras, “Building Your Company’s Vision,” available on Oncourse;
  • Nina Simon, “Deliberately Unsustainable Business Models,” available at
  • Museum Administration: An Introduction, pages 21-24, and Box 2.1.

Bring to class 5 museum mission and/or vision statements from history museums or historic houses not located in Indianapolis.Please cut and paste these onto one page and bring 6 copies.

Team Assignment Due A one-page description of your institution and its mission/vision statement(s). Due by Monday, January 31st at 8am to Oncourse.

Week 4: February 3, 2011

Leadership Case Study 2: Strategic Planning. Guest Speaker: Cathy Ferree, Senior Director, Strategic Planning, Conner Prairie. Ms. Ferree will be with us from 6:00-7:30. Please do not be late to class.

  • Museum Administration: An Introduction, Chapter 4, “Strategic planning”;
  • Elizabeth E. Merritt, “Introduction: An Overview of Planning” and “Anatomy of Planning,” in Secrets of Institutional Planning (Washington, DC: American Association of Museums, 2007). Available on Oncourse;
  • Cinnamon Catlin-Legutko, “DIY Strategic Planning,” History News (Spring) 2008. Available on Oncourse;
  • Michael Porter, “What is Strategy?” Harvard Business Review. Available on Oncourse;
  • Strategic Plans: Indianapolis Museum of Art, Morris Butler House, Eiteljorg Museum, and General Lew Wallace Study and Museum. Your team will be assigned one of these to read closely and to evaluate using the Strategic Plan Evaluation Rubric. You should skim the other three. No précis is due for the strategic plans;
  • “The Cost of "Free": Admission Fees at American Art Museums,” available at

Additional Resources:

Lord, Gail Dexter and Kate Markert. The Manual of Strategic Planning for Museums. Lanham, MD:

AltaMira Press, 2007.

Week 5: February 10, 2011

No Formal Class Meeting.

Individual Assignment: You will be assigned either the Indiana State Museum or the Indiana Historical Society and will visit that institution to analyze it in light of mission, vision, and planning. Please upload to your dropbox on Oncourse a one-page analysis of the institution before class on February 17, 2011. This analysis will take the place of the précis in week 5. I will be at the ISM on Tuesday, February 8th from 1-3 and at the IHS on Wednesday, February 9th from 1-3 to do walk-throughs for this assignment. Please join me if you would like. I will not have regular office hours this week.

Teams: I strongly recommend that your group use our regular class meeting time this week to meet at a location of your group’s choosing to work on your Museum Plan.

Team Assignment Due: Preliminary Strategic Planfor your museum. Due Monday, February 14th at 8am to Oncourse.

Week 6: February 17, 2011

Leadership Case Study 3: The Eiteljorg Museum. John Vanausdall, President and CEO. We will be meeting in the Thompson Boardroom at the Eiteljorg. Please arrive by 5:45 to be checked in by security. We will begin promptly at 6pm.

Assigned Readings:

  • Museum Administration: An Introduction, Chapter 6, “Development.”

Week 7: February 24, 2011

The Working Museum: Organization andGovernance

Assigned Readings:

  • Museum Administration: An Introduction, pages 39-55;
  • Robert Janes, “Embracing Organizational Change in Museums,” in Museum Management and Marketing (London and New York: Routledge, 2007), available on Oncourse;
  • Richard P. Chait, William P. Ryan, and Barbara E. Taylor, Governance as Leadership: Reframing the Work of Nonprofit Boards, Chapters 1, 2, 5, and 6. Available on Oncourse;
  • Harold and Susan Skramstad, “Working Model: A Mechanism for the Effective Board,” available at:
  • Harold Skramstad, “A Conflict’s Resolution,”

Read ONE of the following three:

  • Ingram, Richard T., Ten Basic Responsibilities of Nonprofit Boards, rev. ed. National Center for Nonprofit Boards (Washington DC: BoardSource, 2003). Available on Oncourse; Pages 1-23 only;
  • AAM, The Accreditation Commission’s Expectations Regarding Governance, (2005); Available online at:
  • Independent Sector, Principles for Good Governance and Ethical Practice: A Guide for Charities and Foundations; Available on Oncourse; Pages 13-19 only.

Week 8: March 3

Management of Personnel and Collections

Assigned Readings:

  • Museum Administration: An Introduction, Chapter 7 and 8
  • John Simmons, “Managing Things: Crafting a Collections Policy, Museum News 2004, available at:
  • Gardner and Merritt, “Collections Planning,” Museum News, July/August, 2002; available at
  • Thomas Wolf, Managing a Nonprofit Organization in the Twenty-First Century, Chapter 4, Available on Oncourse;
  • “Collection Management,” The Manual of Museum Management, available on Oncourse

Additional Resources:

“Historic House Museum or Grandma’s Attic: The Value of a Collections Planning Guide for a Historic House Museum Collection,” available on OnCourse.

Week 9: March 10, 2011

Public/Private Partnerships

Leadership Case Study 4: Ron Newlin (His resume is available on Oncourse; Please read as you prepare potential questions to ask him).

Assigned Readings:

  • Exhibiting Public Value: Government Funding for Museums in the United States, available at MuseumPublicFinance.pdf;
  • Michael Rushton and Arthur C. Brooks, “Government Funding of Nonprofit Organizations,” available on Oncourse.

Week 10: March 17, 2011