Museums engaging diverse Millennials in community dialogue

ABSTRACT

In 2016, Levine Museum of the New South (LMNS) developed an innovative Sustained Dialogue program aimed at engaging and training a diverse group of Millennials in dialogue. University researchers partnered with museum staff in the program development, implementation, and evaluation. The program led to awareness and critical reflection at multiple scales: individual, group, and the broader community. Participants enhanced their cultural competence and their ability to facilitate conversations about difficult and pressing community issues. The program also helped participants identify solutions and actions to make their communities more inclusive. Participants realized the power of dialogue as a tool for introspection, interaction and social change. Millennials are attracted to programming that is informal, non-hierarchical, involves movement and (inter)activity, and builds skills and networks useful to everyday life. Millennials believe in grassroots efforts and incorporating technology as a way to share experiences, though face-to-face interactions are still viewed as meaningful.

KEYWORDS:

• Millennials
• diversity
• dialogue
• evaluation
• Latinos/Hispanics

Acknowledgments

We thank Levine Museum of the New South staff for all their efforts in making the Nuevolution! exhibit and the Nuevo Dia dialogue programming possible. We wish to highlight the extensive contributions of Sustained Dialogue participants. We thank them for their time, energy, and contributions to this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Johanna Claire Schuch obtained her Ph.D. in Geography and is a Receptivity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement postdoctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Her main research interests include immigration, community health, and social inequalities. Her dissertation combined participatory and qualitative methods to explore and improve the school-to-work transition for Latino youth. As a member of the Mecklenburg Area Partnership for Primary care Research (MAPPR), she worked for four years on a National Institutes of Health funded community-based participatory research (CBPR) project focused on improving access to primary care for underserved Latino communities in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. She has also worked with the Academy for Population Health and Innovation (APHI) to enhance the health of lower-income Charlotte-Mecklenburg residents through research and evidence-based interventions. Dr. Schuch was the lead evaluator of the Levine Museum of the New South's community dialogues and Sustained Dialogue program. In this role, she collaborated closely with museum staff and participants to design and execute museum dialogue programming, developed research materials, collected and analyzed data, and wrote evaluation reports.

Susan B. Harden is an Associate Professor of Education at UNC Charlotte and the Director for the Civic Minor in Urban Youth and Communities and the Charlotte Community Scholars undergraduate research program. Dr. Harden's teaching, research, and service expertise is in understanding community engagement at cultural institutions and developing engaged scholarship in higher education. She received her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Teaching, with a concentration in Cultural Studies from the University of North Carolina Greensboro.

Kamille Bostick is a former museum educator, high school teacher and newspaper reporter who now serves as Director of the Writing Center at Livingstone College in Salisbury, NC. As the VP of Education at Levine Museum of the New South from 2015–2017, she specializes in curriculum and program design, audience and community engagement, and is trained in dialogue facilitation. Her work centers on access, education and empowerment.

Heather A. Smith is a Professor of Geography and Director of the Urban Studies Minor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She also serves as Director of the PhD in Geography and Faculty Fellow with the Levine Scholars program. She has longstanding research interests in immigrant settlement and integration with a particular focus on Latino migration to the “New South”. Dr. Smith was a member of the LMNS conceptual development team for the Nuevolution exhibit and of the Learning Network with the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and Atlanta History Center.

Notes

1 The American Association of Museums (AMA) recognized the LMNS for Excellence in Exhibition for its Changing Places exhibit in 2010 as well as its 2005 Courage exhibit and in 2005, the museum received the National Award for Museum Service, the federal government's highest honor for museums.

2 All quotes between quotation marks are verbatim. Other quotes are paraphrased from participants’ verbal contributions, e.g. during meetings and in the video interviews. Pseudonyms are used for confidentiality purposes. Quotes are used to as examples of deeper evidence and key findings.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Reemprise Fund.