Tag: leadership
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The Stories We Could Tell. . . If We Paid the Interns
Here’s the simple truth: I wouldn’t be in the museum field if it wasn’t for a string of paid summer internships during my college years. But this origin story is rapidly becoming extinct.
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But if all the educators are gone?
If we’re lucky, we all have particular moments in our career that we can point to and say “I’m really proud of this. If this is my legacy, it’s enough.” Earlier this week, Facebook reminded me that it had been 10 years since one of those moments–the founding of the Informal Educators of Dallas County.…
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Leadership today. . . and the Great Recession back then
Lord have mercy–the world has changed a bit since I last wrote, hasn’t it? There are a million thoughts I could share about the Covid 19 pandemic and museum leadership, and maybe someday I’ll be able to write out all those thoughts. Or not. Has anyone else noticed how exhausting a pandemic can be? I’m…
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Best year ever?
Last night, while catching up with a fellow nonprofit friend, she said to me: “All that shit you’ve gone through over the last few years is turning into manure!” Now, she works for a garden, so these kind of metaphors are natural for her. But I do love it, and it may be a new…
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Me and Lady Mary
A few weeks ago, I joined a friend to see an eagerly anticipated movie–Downton Abbey. It was exactly what I thought it would be–a soapy drama with fabulous clothes and British accents. But there was this one moment that caught me totally off guard, and it had me stifling back sobs and wanting to cheer…
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Preparing for the hard stuff
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about intimacy at the workplace. No, not THAT kind of intimacy, but rather emotional intimacy. Think about it: these are people that you spend a very large chunk of your life with. But have you ever been emotionally vulnerable in front of your colleagues? Have…
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It’s not just about us
Somehow, two big projects I’ve been working on for eons landed at City Hall for big votes on the same day. In truth, I found this highly annoying. Seriously, what are the odds? And who wants to spend all morning at City Hall? Spoiler alert: both projects passed unanimously. And though on the surface, the…
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Sometimes, the answer is “not great”
Next week should be one of my favorite weeks of the year–the annual meeting of the American Association of State and Local History. It’s a time to start growing new ideas, catch up with old friends, and make connections. But if I’m being perfectly honest with myself, I’m actually really dreading it. At a professional…
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Babel: Sifting through the noise
Right now, some theater kids in Dallas are doing some of the most amazing historical work I’ve ever seen. Cry Havoc Theater Company is a young organization, formed in 2014 , full of active and involved young people. I first heard of them when they opened their play, Shots Fired, a play about the July…
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Finding balance in the archives
I abhor a mess. But for most of the last month, my dining room table has looked like this. As an executive director, I do an enormous amount of writing–grants, emails, newsletter articles, and blogs. But I had almost forgotten how historical writing stretches your brain in entirely different directions. It was almost like my…
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