In 2020/21, CU Art Museum staff developed an IDEA plan for the academic years 2020/21, 2021/22, 2022/23.
The Museum's Inclusion, Diversity and Excellence in Academics (IDEA) Plan
The CU Art Museum inspires cultural awareness, diversity and inclusiveness, creating lifelong cultural advocates. The CU Art Museum staff are firm in our commitment to equity and fairness in our work. We embrace broad definitions of accessibility to be welcoming and collaborative. In our exhibitions, programs and campus engagement, we confront complex cultural and social issues. We recognize that power dynamics in museums present obstacles for visitors and future professionals who wish to gain entry to our galleries and to the field. We are committed to identifying and shaping new paths forward.
CU Art Museum aligns our vision for diversity with:
our Mission, Vision and Strategic Plan and CU Boulder’s Diversity Plan, Mission and Strategic Vision.
The IDEA plan is a living document, and we plan to share our progress in a public report at the end of every academic year.
Land acknowledgement
The CU Art Museum staff recognizes that the university sits upon land within the territories of the Ute, Cheyenne and Arapaho peoples. Further, we acknowledge that 48 contemporary tribal nations are historically tied to the lands that make up the state of Colorado.
Areas of Action
Our work on diversity, equity, accessibility and inclusion is evidenced by the following actions and commitments:
1. Access and success
We acknowledge the lack of diversity in the professional pipeline for the museum field and commit to creating opportunities to bring students from diverse backgrounds into our field of work.
We will audit our collection database to be more accessible and inclusive.
2. Climate and intergroup contact
To create a more welcoming climate, we will showcase artists and artworks from a diversity of cultural backgrounds, geographies, abilities and identities in our exhibitions and programs.
We will create a more physically accessible museum experience to better address a variety of our visitors’ needs.
3. Education and professional development
We support all museum staff and students with training, time and resources in developing and meeting annual diversity, equity, accessibility and inclusion goals.
4. Institutional infrastructure
We recognize that an overreliance on unpaid labor is a structural inequity in the field. We will identify and implement strategies to address pay equity among professional staff and students.
We use W.A.G.E.’s certification fees calculator, among other resources, to determine equitable honoraria and fees.
We will include diversity, equity, accessibility and inclusion goals when developing exhibition and programmatic content.
We will implement strategies to reduce bias, broaden our applicant pool and attract applicants from historically underrepresented groups.
We will build a collection that supports the IDEA Plans of the museum’s and our campus, and the academic mission of the university. In our Collection Plan, we articulate a commitment to purchasing artwork by artists of color, artists with disabilities and LGBTQ+ artists.