WAM Diversity Policy

Wichita Art Museum Policy on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

POLICY PREAMBLE The Wichita Art Museum’s enduring commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion aligns with its mission to touch lives through art. Encounters with art are transformative, frequently opening horizons of thought or life paths.

WAM’s beautiful facilities and leading collection of American art are intended to add greatly to the joy and meaning of life for Wichitans and visitors. The museum wants a sense of welcome to animate the museum experience for all who enter our doors.

Inclusion will continue to activate museum policies, leadership, hiring, partnerships, and programs.

Our efforts to ensure that inclusion courses throughout WAM include assessment of the history of privilege of the organization, its founders, leaders, supporters, volunteers, and staff. Our work for inclusion embraces diversity of culture, race, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, age, religion, and socioeconomic and educational background.

The Wichita Art Museum commits to this work as serious, systemic, and never ending. Meeting people where they are, and sharply listening and responding to underrepresented voices enriches our community.

We expect that deep listening and learning will help us confirm effective ongoing practices and identify new practices that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. These include such areas as: Reflecting diversity of artists and subjects in the permanent collection and changing exhibitions ■ Training leadership, staff, and volunteers to understand and avoid unconscious bias ■ Continuing dedication to a friendly, audience-centered museum, with frontline employee training for inclusive welcome ■ Increased emphasis on diversity in selection of leadership, employees, and vendors ■

Unique ideas and different experiences amplify creativity and innovation. The Wichita Art Museum values this work toward inclusiveness to sustain our dynamic vibrancy by embracing and reflecting our community. We are better together.

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Defining key terms in this document

Diversity means all the ways in which people differ, from demographic and cultural identity to life experience and diversity of thought, recognizing that individuals have multiple identities.

Equity means aligning policies, practices, and resources to create an environment where all people have opportunities to flourish. Equity may require different strategies within different contexts.

Inclusion means creating a welcoming, accessible environment where people feel respected, supported, and valued to participate fully in our museum.

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Policy Development

The Wichita Art Museum understands that practice—what we do—must honor our policy, values, and beliefs. WAM commits to practices and to measurement to record our progress and ethic of inclusion. Our policy honors impact over intent, and it includes gauges to track our change and impact.

Emphasis on adopting inclusive policy and practices began years before George Floyd’s May 2020 murder. In implementing its 2018–23 Strategic Plan, WAM had already consciously begun diversifying its board, permanent collection, and exhibitions. Our efforts were catalyzed and accelerated in 2020 by the understanding that race relations have reached a critical point and that, as a repository of American art in a diverse community, WAM has a special responsibility to represent American values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

We accept that there is no single path to approach equity, address historic systemic racism or discrimination of whatever kind, and create a path for change. This work will be ongoing, never perfect or complete. We will have unintentional missteps along the way. Nonetheless, we are fully committed to the hard work to improve the sense of belonging for all at WAM. Development of this policy involved scrutiny of our past and careful reflection on our current activities. WAM’s board assembled a committee including a mix of board and community members. This committee and its work groups met more than 40 times during more than a year of fact-finding, listening, and discussions. WAM engaged in this consciously deliberative process to squarely face how the museum could improve and where unconscious bias might be present.

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1. Conversations with museum elders revealed, as expected, that the museum founders and early leaders were white and largely affluent. Board members from minority communities in Wichita were absent until recent years. In this oversight in our institutional history, WAM did poorly in reflecting the composition of Wichita residents and proactively serving visitors from local diverse groups.

2. WAM engaged in two questionnaires that sought input into perceptions of the art museum. a. Visitors to the 2021 exhibition African American Art from the 20th Century completed gallery comment cards asking for feedback on this show and a desire for similar exhibitions in the future. b. Online feedback was solicited through WAM’s participation in the Annual Study of Museum-Goers, sponsored by the American Alliance of Museums. This survey explores trends in motivations for museum attendance and examines interest in inclusive content.

3. WAM contracted with Wichita State University’s Public Policy and Management Center (PPMC) for a Listening Engagement project. These professionals conducted candid conversations with members of minority and underserved community groups in Wichita. The study solicited insights into the broad perception of the art museum and recommendations for change that would improve the reputation of WAM regarding its welcome to diverse groups and increase the inclination to visit with a stronger sense of belonging.

These studies brought numerous revelations. WAM heard critiques that we accept as well-deserved. We also learned that even as the museum has changed in recent years, perceptions are carried over from earlier, less inclusive times.

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WAM DEI Policy and practice also aligns with the City of Wichita’s Nondiscrimination Ordinance and its legal framework “to eliminate and prevent discrimination based on a protected class.” As the Ordinance confirms, “The practice or policy of discrimination against persons by reason of their age, color, disability, familial status, gender identity, genetic information, national origin or ancestry, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, veteran status, or any other factor protected by law (“protected class”) is a matter of concern to the City, since such discrimination not only threatens the rights and privileges of the inhabitants of the City but also menaces the institutions and foundations of a free democratic society.”

The set of practices incorporated in this policy benefits from what WAM has learned from the thorough process, tough feedback, and commitment to change.

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WAM DEI POLICY

ADMISSION AND WELCOME Art museums can be intimidating to those who haven’t been exposed to museumgoing. Simply entering the WAM building can seem like a barrier to those unfamiliar with the museum environment. They may perceive it as formal, rule-bound, designed for people unlike themselves, or just plain irrelevant. The museum’s paid admission most days presents an economic barrier, especially to families.

To overcome these barriers, WAM promises a culture of welcome in every way and at every turn to truly deliver rewarding experiences within our mission of community service. Ability to pay admission shall never again be a barrier to visit the art museum.

1. WAM commits to continuing free admission to all on Saturdays, the museum’s busiest day. Starting in 2019, free WAM admission one day a week has been endowed to assure this welcome for generations to come.

2. WAM commits to large free events (e.g. summer Birthday Bash, Tunes + Tallgrass, Holiday Open House, ArtVenture Family Days) to attract and serve the broad Wichita community, particularly those who don’t visit museums often.

3. WAM commits to promoting large free events in media channels—print, radio, TV, social—that serve underserved and minority audiences in Wichita, including Spanish-language media.

4. WAM commits to offering most public programs at no charge. Such programs include lectures, films, family days, school tours, and field trip bus reimbursement.

5. WAM commits to scholarship offerings to those who seek discounted or free program registration.

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COMMUNITY OUTREACH Partnerships are a mainstay of successful non-profit arts organization—building synchronicity, sharing resources, and cross-fertilizing audiences. It is in our DNA at WAM to partner. Partnerships also provide a proactive path toward greater community resonance. Partnerships at WAM will continue to prioritize relationships with people and organizations far beyond the usual and expected network. A repeated sentiment in the PPMC interviews was a desire among minority respondents to be able to come to the museum to attend events that are relevant to their culture and heritage.

In 2021, WAM has positive relationships with and regularly partners with numerous organizations devoted to people of diverse backgrounds. To nurture these relationships and develop others, further community outreach and partnerships remain paramount and part of WAM’s Strategic Plan.

1. Create a new staff position—Community Partnership Coordinator—dedicated to cultivating and supporting an expanded network of community partners/ collaborators. The position will be funded and hired in 2022.

2. Develop partnerships with community and youth-serving organizations to reach those with traditionally limited access to the museum.

3. Focus on Title 1 USD259 schools as the School Tour Initiative in the Strategic Plan develops.

4. Deepen relationships with community organizations with a record of collaboration with WAM. 5. Build new relationships with community organizations to enhance resonance in the city and metro 6. Create and promote Educator Guides for school tours on art by, and representing, marginalized populations.

7. Promote free Saturdays and other WAM programs to groups, neighborhoods, and distinct social/cultural communities of Wichita historically underrepresented in life at WAM.

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BOARD OF TRUSTEES, STAFF, AND VOLUNTEERS Board 1. The Board of Trustees has consciously increased its diversity over the past several years and currently has 15% people of color and 85% white membership.

2. The Board is committed to continuing to increase its diversity to reflect the fundamental demographics of the Wichita metro. (In 2021, roughly 30% of the Wichita area population are people of color.)

3. The Board is also committed to representing other forms of diversity, including and not limited to gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, age, religion, national origin and socioeconomic and educational background.

4. To assure integration of new trustees into the life and culture of WAM board activity, incoming board members will partner with a tenured board member. These partner activities will serve to welcome and include new members and assure full absorption into board operations and cultivate friendship and collaboration, particularly for incoming board members of color.

5. Diversity, equity, and inclusion sessions will be scheduled annually for the board.

These sessions for broad awareness should evolve and change to take advantage of new models, developing thought, and relationships with diverse Wichita organizations.

6. The chair, vice chair, and immediate past chair of WAM Trustees have special responsibility to assure implementation of these board practices.

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Staff The evidence of the museum’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion lies within its hiring, retention, and promotion practices.

1. To shift the WAM staff composition—frontline employees and professional staff— to reflect the demographics of Wichita is complicated by the systemic racism that discourages people of color to find professional careers in the leading museum roles. The museum field continues to thwart access and opportunity to people who cannot afford to work for free as interns during professional development.

This challenge must not lessen the effort to seek and attract people of color to WAM employment at all levels. WAM will seek funding to support paid, entry-level internships for disadvantaged students and recent graduates to experience working in an art museum.

2. WAM is eager to have a work culture that values diversity as an essential ingredient in attracting and retaining outstanding employees and fulfilling our responsibility to the community. WAM commits to hiring practices that seek job candidates from diverse backgrounds. All hiring search committees shall include at least one person of color.

3. WAM commits to posting job announcements, when appropriate for the position, in national, regional, and local publications and job boards with focus on minority and other marginalized groups.

4. WAM will seek referrals for open positions from the board, staff, volunteers, and the community, eager to receive references for strong candidates beyond standard avenues of job posting.

5. Inclusion training will be scheduled for all WAM employees annually with multiple sessions, to encourage strong participation, even by part-time employees. The training will be presented by professional consultants, not museum staff. Frontline staff shall participate in inclusion training during onboarding for WAM employment.

6. Demonstrated commitment to and practice of diversity, equity, and inclusion values shall be included in employee annual performance evaluations.

7. Employee grievances and complaints shall receive quick, sensitive, and thorough action, most especially if the complaint touches on insensitivity and/or hostility that does not advance the strong ethic of inclusion at WAM. This Human Resource response follows City of Wichita and WAM, Inc. Employee Policies, which include whistleblower protections.

8. The director and assistant museum director for human resources and finance have special responsibility to assure implementation of these staff practices.

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Volunteers 1. Volunteers—docents, book-sale workers, greeters, education activity assistants— will be engaged in annual inclusion training.

2. WAM leadership will not hesitate to have frank conversations with volunteers who make comments or have verbal exchanges that do not reflect WAM’s core ethic of inclusion and belonging. Consequences, including dismissal from WAM volunteer service, will be enforced if the situation warrants.

3. The chairs of the Friends of WAM and Docent Committee have special responsibility to assure implementation of these volunteer practices.

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COLLECTION WAM is devoted to American art and has a distinguished collection. WAM developed the first Collection Plan in 2014. From that year forward and as part of the boardapproved Plan, WAM has a commitment to enhance and expand representation of women artists and artists of color. As of the drafting of this DEI policy in 2021, like commitments going forward will be made to LGBTQ artists and other marginalized populations who have suffered a history of exclusion in collection holdings Through museum purchases, substantial new acquisitions have been made to deepen these areas of the collection. WAM has been ever mindful of this intention and commits to this priority.

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Excerpt from the 2019 Collection Plan Art by Women In 2019, WAM’s collection includes work by 282 women artists in comparison to 1,591 male artists. Work by women represents less than 18% of the artists in the collection. Though the lack of work by women artists is felt throughout the collection, it is especially evident in the core collection of American modernist works.

Artists of Color Elizabeth Navas (a museum founder who assembled WAM’s Roland P. Murdock Collection) believed that “art is a mirror of our culture.” In this spirit, WAM should promote inclusivity and seek artistic representation from all communities that comprise our American culture. A variety of artists from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds are lacking in the collection, preventing a comprehensive vision of American art. As of 2019, there are only 74 artists of color represented in the collection (not including the Pre-Columbian or Native American collections), less than 4% of the total. This percentage is inconsistent with diversity represented in Wichita.

1. Annually at the December board meeting, staff will report to the board on collection acquisitions that further the commitment to deepen representation of marginalized groups in the WAM collection and demonstrate progress toward this institutional priority.

2. The chair of the Collection Committee, director, and curator have special responsibility to assure implementation of these collection practices.

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EXHIBITION Visitors to the Wichita Art Museum should richly enjoy their experience and sense that they belong. For people of minority, LGBTQ or other marginalized backgrounds, finding artwork on gallery walls that acknowledge them, that “see” them is significant. WAM commits to the ongoing practice to display artworks that depict members of these groups and are by members of these groups.

1. Annually at the December board meeting, staff will report to the board on exhibitions in the year that furthered the commitment to deepen representation of diverse people and subjects in WAM’s collection.

2. As collection exhibitions are developed, curators commit to inclusion of women artists, LGBTQ artists, and artists of color.

3. Since 2015, at least one exhibition each year has had a woman or person of color headline the exhibition. WAM will continue the practice and work to have at least two exhibitions annually featuring women artists, LGBTQ artists and/or artists of color.

4. Any art museum has an obligation to artists in their city and region. Wichita Art Museum will continue its creative exhibitions, giving local and regional artists a platform for community engagement and professional recognition.

5. The director and curator have special responsibility to assure implementation of these exhibition practices.

VENDORS The Wichita Art Museum is a public/private partnership. WAM, Inc. manages the organization with an Operating Agreement with the City of Wichita in a City facility.

The City of Wichita is responsible for maintenance of the building and grounds. The City of Wichita has a formal policy to advance small businesses and minority-owned and female-owned businesses in its pool of vendors. That policy is detailed in the City of Wichita Emerging and Disadvantaged Business Enterprise and Procedure Manual. Through this well-defined policy, the City encourages vendor relationships with Veteran-Owned Business, Women-Owned Business, African American Owned Business, Asian Pacific American Owned Business, Asian Subcontinent Owned Business, Hispanic American Owned Business, and Native American Owned Business, among other groups.

WAM, Inc. has important relationships with vendors and supplies. Vendor companies with a larger profile in WAM business include utilities and specialized museum companies. Blackbaud (donor database company), Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cox Communications, Evergy, Midwest Art Conservation Center, and Wichita Public Utilities are among the leading vendors to the museum.

1. WAM will encourage vendor and supplier relationships with companies owned and/or run by women and people of color and LGBTQ. 2. The WAM Store will encourage vendor relationships with companies that are owned by and/or that significantly focus employment on women and people of color and LGBTQ. 3. In its vendor relationship with WAM, the Muse Cafe will practice these values and protocols.

4. The director, assistant museum director for human resources and finance and museum store manager have special responsibility to assure implementation of these vendor practices.

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Policy Review and Revision WAM board leadership and the senior management team are responsible for the periodic review and revision of the WAM Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Policy, which should take place each time the WAM Strategic Plan is updated, or more frequently as changing circumstances require. The commitment to review this policy reflects WAM’s full understanding that our ongoing work demands an organic, living document.

Approved November 4, 2021

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Appendix 1.

2020–21 Wichita Art Museum Ad Hoc Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee CO-CHAIRS Prisca Barnes—Executive Director, Storytime Village Lou Heldman—WAM vice chair of the board (retired Vice President for Strategic Communications, Wichita State University) Alejo Cabral—WAM board member (Wichita Chamber of Commerce, W Director, Young Professionals) Yolanda Camarena—Kansas Hispanic Education & Development Foundation Board Member Kenya Cox—Executive Director, Kansas African American Affairs Commission Junetta Everett – Vice President Professional Relations – Delta Dental of Kansas Dr. Kevin Harrison—Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Assistant Professor, Cohen Honors College, Wichita State University Sheila Kinnard—WAM board member (retired USD259 drama teacher) Martha Linsner—WAM chair of the board (President, The Trust Company of Kansas) Naama Marcos—WAM board member (Creative Director, Visual Fusion Graphic Design Studio) Jonathan McRoy—Kansas African American Affairs Commissioner Armando Minjarez—Artist, Designer, and Community Organizer Mayra Ocampo—Art Director, Koch Creative Group TeOndra Phillips—WAM board member (Certified Public Accountant) Adriene Rathbun—WAM board member (Chef, Wichita Eagle Food Writer, and Photo Stylist) Marni Vliet Stone—WAM board member (President, Marni Vliet Strategy & former CEO of The Kansas Health Foundation) Jeff Van Sickle—WAM board chair and immediate past chair (retired GLMV Architecture) Dr. Patricia McDonnell—WAM director Dr. Tera Hedrick—WAM curator

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