I’m excited to share with you the newly published book
Fostering Empathy Through Museums, edited by Elif M. Gokcigdem and published by Rowman & Littlefield. I partnered with Jonathan Carfagno, Director of Learning and Audience Engagement, Grand Rapids Art Museum on museums, core values and the importance of empathy as a value. Our chapter looks at the role that core values, the ethics that governs your organization, can and should have in cultural organizations. By looking at many successful, audience focused organizations – primarily for-profit organizations – we were better able to identify the role and importance that values can and should play in each organization.
Here at the Worcester Art Museum, we have already begun applying these ideas, working to make sure that the Museum is both an intellectually stimulating and engaging place and also one that understands and respects the different needs of our visitors. This includes elements like the experience arriving at the Museum, where we now also have parking spaces for expecting mothers, all the way to the experience in the galleries, where new configurations of seating encourage visitors to relax, not rush.
- Adam R Rozan, Director of Audience Engagement
