National Center for Art Museum/School Collaborations

The North Texas Institute for Educators on the Visual Arts (NTIEVA) at the University of North Texas has received a grant from the Getty Center for Education in the Arts to establish as its specialty program a National Center for Art Museum/School Collaborations (NCAMSC). The Center focuses on collaborative programming between art museums and schools in a comprehensive approach to art education.

It serves as a clearinghouse for information about successful programs and practices by conducting and collecting research, maintaining a database of information, and creating electronic and/or print networks for information retrieval. The Center also will organize regional and national conferences to bring together art museum and school educators, and will develop a program of publications on the subject of art museum/school collaborations.

Leadership for the Center is provided by D. Jack Davis and Dr. Jacqueline Chanda, co-directors of NTIEVA, and Nancy Berry, Assistant Professor of Art History and Art Education, who serves as program director.

UNT graduate students in art education and art history working on the certificate in art museum education serve as research assistants and interns, making significant contributions to research, development, and dissemination of information through networks and publications.

In November 1994, members of the first national advisory board for the Center met in Denton to review goals, objectives, and research and development activities proposed for the first year. Their analysis and recommendations helped guide the Center's activities during a formative period. Members of the first advisory board were Amelia Arenas, Museum of Modern Art, New York; Dana Baldwin, Portland (Maine) Art Museum ; Schroeder Cherry, Baltimore Museum of Art; Anne El-Omami, Cincinnati Art Museum; Susan Hazelroth, Ringling Museum of Art; Allison Perkins, Amon Carter Museum; Kathleen Walsh-Piper, Dallas Museum of Art and Ray Williams, Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina.

A series of focus groups was conducted during the summer of 1995 to assist the Center in targeting the needs of its users, and an extensive survey is being sent to school and museum art educators during the fall of 1995. This preliminary research will shape the Center's organization and form the basis for its information retrieval system.

The Center is viewed as a three-pronged resource to the fields of art and art museum education. It will store information about museum/school collaborations in an easily accessible format so that museum, university, and school users can find examples to aid in their program design. In its networking function, the Center will offer opportunities for interaction between school, museum, and university educators and administrators. As a research center, NCAMSC will be a site for visiting and resident researchers from art and art museum education fields, and serve as vehicle for the publication of advances in theory and practice. The services offered by the National Center for Art Museum/School Collaborations will address growing national concerns among art museums, art museum educators, school administrators, teachers, and universities.