{"id":441,"date":"2019-04-30T13:15:15","date_gmt":"2019-04-30T17:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/?p=441"},"modified":"2019-04-30T13:15:52","modified_gmt":"2019-04-30T17:15:52","slug":"441","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/?p=441","title":{"rendered":"Meet Douglas Perkins, Associate Director of the Middlebury College Museum of Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Lindsay Olsen<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"When you\u2019ve already been a cyclist, a bartender, and a graphic designer, where do you find your next challenge? For Douglas Perkins, it was at his alma mater, Middlebury College, an historic liberals arts school nestled in the scenic hills of west-central Vermont. \u201cAs tends to happen in small-town communities,\u201d he says, the opportunity to serve as coordinator for the campus art museum came unexpectedly, when a friend asked him to fill in during her maternity leave. Perkins stuck around, and eventually the role expanded until he was involved in most aspects of the museum\u2019s day-to-day functions as Associate Director of Operations and Finance.<\/p>\n

Having graduated in 1994 with a B.A. in Economics, overseeing the contracts, salaries, budgets, endowments, and acquisitions of an institution didn\u2019t seem like much of a stretch. However, it was Perkins\u2019s personal passion for brand management and advertising that led to his taking responsibility for the museum\u2019s outreach efforts. Over the years, he noticed that the museum had fallen slightly on the list of the college\u2019s priorities \u2013 somewhat understandably, he concedes, as running an active collecting museum is expensive when factoring in the costs of acquisitions, insurance, security, climate control\u2026not to mention staff. As a result, Perkins would have to work extra hard to justify their continuing fight for resources.<\/p>\n

To do this, he would need to bolster the museum\u2019s connection with its core audience: the students. Despite the promise of the booming social media landscape circa 2010, Perkins found that his attempt to single-handedly build a digital presence wasn\u2019t working as well as he had hoped without the time and staff resources necessary to carefully plan an online marketing strategy. So he hired three student workers to oversee peer outreach and event coordination, which included the development of a Thursday evening activities series called \u201cNights at the Museum,\u201d designed to extend their hours and get more people into the building. With the elimination of the $15 student membership fee, all 2,600 Middlebury students became automatic members of the museum who receive museum outreach communications.<\/p>\n

For the 250-300 art-lovers who pay dues to be involved in museum events (known as Friends of the Museum), Perkins felt it was important to uphold a unique and rather special tradition. Each November, Friends are invited to a purchase party, where they get the chance to view the art and vote on which pieces their annual contributions will buy. \u201cBut,\u201d as Perkins reminds me, \u201cthe museum is a teaching collection, first and foremost. We never buy anything or accept any gifts unless we can say \u2018this is something with which we\u2019ll teach.\u2019\u201d As if to reinforce this, students in the arts disciplines have begun making presentations on the potential purchases. Some go on to serve as paid Museum Ambassadors, or docents, who work closely with local schoolteachers to provide material that is relevant to their curriculum. The immediacy of the process has forged a definite bond between the school and community, which Perkins hopes will continue. The area is rural, but the college \u201cplays a significant part in the cultural goings-on of the region.\u201d With the programs that have been developed over Perkins\u2019s eighteen-year tenure, it seems unlikely that residents or college administrators will forget they are there.<\/p>\n

For a listing of upcoming Nights at the Museum and an archive of past events, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Lindsay Olsen When you\u2019ve already been a cyclist, a bartender, and a graphic designer, where do you find your next challenge? For Douglas Perkins, it was at his alma mater, Middlebury College, an historic liberals arts school nestled in the scenic hills of west-central Vermont. \u201cAs tends to happen in small-town communities,\u201d he says, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Meet Douglas Perkins, Associate Director of the Middlebury College Museum of Art”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":433,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/433"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=441"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":444,"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions\/444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}