Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Access, and Inclusion

​The summer of 2020 marks a period of upheaval in the United States, and we as a nation will be forever changed. We not only grappled with a global health pandemic and subsequent economic crisis, we also bore witness to the traumatic murder of George Floyd, then watched as pain spread across the country, along with demands for justice. It is ongoing. Those who work in the cultural heritage sector are reckoning with these events alongside everyone else. We, the Board of Directors of the Society of Winterthur Fellows, believe that our collective professions have the ability—and responsibility—to advance issues of social justice for our present and our future.

During the summer months, our Board met more often and expressed a firm commitment to advancing diversity, equity, access, and inclusion in the cultural heritage fields that engage our brilliant and talented alumni. Read our letter to alumni supporting Black Lives Matter: Past, Present and Future. Together, the alumni body of the Society of Winterthur Fellows has a tremendous opportunity to affect positive change. Its Board is committed to facilitating that change. 

This page outlines actions the Board has taken over the past several months, as well as where we are now and where we hope to go in the future. As always, we want to hear from you, our members, about how we can improve and grow.

Event Programming

As the COVID-19 pandemic moved us all indoors and onto virtual platforms, the Society quickly shifted gears and began hosting webinar-style events. With amazing support from many of our alumni, and from the department of art conservation at UD, we hosted lectures with topics ranging from fundraising to Cincinnati furniture and Buddhist art conservation. 

We also launched an ongoing series of events in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, starting with Dr. Michelle Everidge's workshop on July 30th, and followed by a Town Hall on September 9th discussing the erroneous concept of neutrality in museums and art conservation. 
Screenshot from Dr. Michelle Everidge's online workshop,
Diversity and Inclusion for Small and Mid-Sized Museums with Dr. Michelle Everidge, July 30, 2020
Using our Zoom membership, we sponsored the first two virtual "un-conferences" organized by the Materializing Race initiative co-organized by Philippe Halbert, WPAMC 2014 and Dr. Cynthia Chin, Washington Library. These events present new perspectives in scholarship at the intersection of identity and material culture in #vastearlyamerica. This critical support enabled the organizers to increase participation capacity to nearly 500 attendees across three continents. 

We look forward to using our platform to continue these important conversations and initiatives. Video recordings for which we have permission to share are accessible on our website under Media Gallery of Past Events. 

Increased Transparency

​Often, the biggest barriers to overcoming institutional and systemic racism are the the hierarchical systems designed to limit information flow. We are making changes to our Board structure, by-laws, and methods and modes of communication to increase transparency on all fronts. 

Some examples of actions already underway include:
  • Clarifying the board nomination and election process and enabling greater alumni engagement 
  • Prioritizing board diversity to better reflect alumni demographics including program affiliation, race, gender, graduation year, geographic location, and current profession
  • Ensuring parity in programming and funding support to alumni and current fellows in both programs
  • Providing alumni with a transparent breakdown of the Society's finances each year
  • Serving as liaison between current fellows, Winterthur leadership, and all program alumni, especially surrounding conversations about Winterthur's efforts to become a more equitable and inclusive institution​​

Acknowledging Our Past

A small but important step in moving past the colonial practices we see in most modern cultural institutions is making an acknowledgement of the Indigenous people who came before us and our presence on their unceded lands. All board members have included land acknowledgements on their profile pages or are actively working with colleagues and community members to finalize the wording they aim to share. We recognize that these statements do not erase or excuse the often violent histories that enable cultural appropriation to this day. We share them as a sign of our commitment to telling the full histories of the objects and people with which we have the great fortune to work, study, love, and learn. 

Inspiring Our Future

We know that many of our fellow alumni—and current fellows--are doing amazing work for social justice. We want to support these efforts, and can do so by offering grants specifically for those advancing diversity, equity, access, and inclusion in our fields. The board will work to formalize this initiative in the coming year. Your membership contribution or donation will help.