Kerry Hannon

The circa 1855 daguerreotype portrait of Lucy Stone, the suffragist and abolitionist, is powerful in its simplicity. Not surprisingly, Stone’s mission was incited by the inequality in a society that discouraged women from becoming educated.

The image is part of “Women of Progress: Early Camera Portraits,” an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, one of several major exhibitions in the nation’s capital that celebrate women — from the battle for voting rights, spurred by the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, to artworks by feminist icons who embody the challenging issues of their epochs.

“Considering the long-standing imbalance in museum prerogatives, a convergence of exhibitions addressing women — as artists, as activists, as historical figures — is notable,” said Susan Fisher Sterling, the director of the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

“In part, this is inspired by the news cycle or the centennial anniversary of women’s suffrage. However, from the vantage of history, it hardly seems enough,” Sterling said. “It is essential for cultural institutions to take substantial and systematic steps to address gender inequity and diversity in their programming, their collections and their leadership, so that this conversation moves beyond a single moment.”

Following is a selection of current and upcoming exhibitions here addressing women’s issues.

National Portrait Gallery

“Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence” commemorates the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment. The exhibition runs the gamut from early photographs and paintings to newspapers and flyers, as well as original banners from the National Woman’s Party. It’s organized chronologically: “Radical Women: 1832-1869,” “Women Activists: 1870-1892,” “The New Woman: 1893-1912,” “Compelling Tactics: 1913-1916,” “Militancy in the American Suffragist Movement: 1917-1919” and “The Nineteenth Amendment and Its Legacy.”

There are portraits of Susan B. Anthony and abolitionist Sojourner Truth; Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for president; Alice Paul, who organized the first march on Washington’s National Mall; and Lucy Burns, who served six separate prison sentences for picketing the White House.

“It’s something that I’ve been really committed to,” said Kim Sajet, the director of the museum, who is the first woman to lead the Gallery. “As soon as I arrived in 2013, we made a policy that 50% of all the funds we would spend should go to a minority subject or artist, which means that well over 50% of the portraits we have collected are of women — now at 53%.

“It means, as we have been collecting more women, it gives us more opportunities to put them up on the walls and tell their stories and build exhibitions around them. So many of these stories are just unknown.”

“One Life: Marian Anderson” explores the life of the renowned contralto and how she became an icon of the civil rights movement. Anderson sang for 75,000 people on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1939 after segregationist policies barred her from performing at Washington’s DAR Constitution Hall — the largest auditorium in the city.

The exhibition goes beyond that pivotal performance and examines her entire career, emphasizing her influence on other artists ranging from Harlem Renaissance painter Beauford Delaney to fashion photographer Irving Penn.

“It is still kind of shocking to me how few people know her name, or what she did in terms of civil rights,” Sajet said. “I think it is really important to keep innovating and keep updating our knowledge and our history of women’s stories and their contributions to America. We know that representation matters.”

National Archives Museum

“Rightfully Hers: American Women and the Vote” conveys the story of women’s suffrage through items such as an image of women suffragettes with a bonfire and posters outside of the White House in 1918, a gendered “voting machine” patent from Aug. 10, 1910, and a 1916 postcard from the Georgia Association Opposed to Woman’s Suffrage.

Library of Congress

“Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote,” displays items relating to significant leaders in the campaign for women’s voting rights from Susan B. Anthony’s own copy of Mary Wollstonecraft’s “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” to personal letters, rare film, photos and scrapbooks created by suffragists.

National Museum of Women in the Arts

“Judy Chicago — The End: A Meditation on Death and Extinction” is a series of nearly 40 works of painted porcelain and glass, as well as two large bronze sculptures, that reflect the artist’s views on her own mortality, compassion and justice. Chicago is one of the principal artists from the feminist art movement of the 1970s.

“For decades, Judy Chicago has modeled for artists of all genders how to step up and speak out about inclusion and injustice,” said Kathryn Wat, deputy director of arts, programs, and public engagement and the chief curator at the museum.

“‘The End,’ which presents an unflinching reflection on individual mortality and our shared ecological fragility, demonstrates how she continues to fearlessly confront the subjects that many prefer to ignore or deny.”

“Live Dangerously” spotlights the works of photographers who defy predictable, passive images of the female form in nature. It includes works by Ana Mendieta, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Anna Gaskell, Dana Hoey, Graciela Iturbide, Kirsten Justesen, Justine Kurland, Rania Matar, Laurie Simmons, Xaviera Simmons and Janaina Tschäpe.

National Museum of African Art

“I Am ... Contemporary Women Artists of Africa” culls its selection of 27 featured artists — including those who are globally familiar, such as Ghada Amer, Zanele Muholi and Wangechi Mutu — from its permanent collection. The majority of the pieces were acquired in the past five years and have not previously been shown in Washington.

On display are short videos, sculptures, textiles, ceramics, paintings and photography. Since 2014, the museum has been driven to procure more work by women, doubling its works by women artists to 22% today.

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

“My Iran: Six Women Photographers” investigates the difficulties of life within and outside Iran. Hengameh Golestan’s shots of women demonstrating in the streets of Tehran in the aftermath of the 1979 Revolution, for instance, seize the spirit of a social and political movement that still echoes.

This article originally appeared in

In the #MeToo Era, Museums Celebrate Women

WASHINGTON — Her somber gaze is direct, and in her lap, she firmly holds a book.

“I was so nervous because I have been out of school since 1988, and going back to classes was a shocker to me,” Santos, 48, said.

But it’s not a typical classroom. His lessons are taught in a retrofitted 53-foot-long semitruck trailer in Oatey’s parking lot. His customized training is paid for by his employer and provided by Cuyahoga Community College, also known as Tri-C.

The purpose: to keep his skills current with the swift changes in robotics technology used at the plant.

Tri-C’s mobile classroom is one of a growing number of similar labs being rolled out by community colleges in response to employers’ needs for skilled workers in industries from manufacturing to health care to information technology. The twist is that they’re going where the students are rather than having the students come to them. And students learn skills they can use right away.

“The mission of community colleges is all about access to the skills training, and we are seeing more and more colleges adopting the mobile technology and buying the equipment to do it because they see it has such an impact,” said Darlene Miller, executive director of the National Council for Workforce Education, an affiliate council of the American Association of Community Colleges.

“It’s exciting because as technology keeps changing with automation and artificial intelligence, workers need to keep being reskilled and retooled, and, for adults who are bound by family and life obligations, having access with a mobile lab to learn is critical,” she said.

The Tri-C unit hit the road about two years ago and travels in Northeast Ohio to companies such as Arconic, Mold-Rite Plastics and Ford, and to schools in nine counties. It houses a lab area for hands-on training and a classroom space with 10 desk stations, Wi-Fi and video systems.

It cost around $340,000 to refurbish the trailer as a classroom, and was funded primarily by a grant from Citizens Bank. But there are also the operational costs of roughly $9,000 per quarter to cover fuel and maintenance.

“Our trailer, which is booked for 47 weeks this year, allows us to take the training to businesses and directly address the region’s manufacturing skills gap,” said William Gary, executive vice president of workforce, community and economic development at Tri-C. “Employers allow their employees time, and they can walk right out of the plant and into our trailer for an hour, or three hours, to conduct the training right on site.”

Oatey currently has 15 employees enrolled in mobile training. The curriculum includes: modules on blueprint and schematics reading; sensors, pneumatics and hydraulics; and advanced troubleshooting. “We recognized a need to grow the skills of our internal technical talent,” Bob Rodgers, Oatey’s chemical plant manager, said.

In turn, the company expects a bang for its buck. “We anticipate seeing improved machine uptime,” Rodgers said. “When machines are running, we achieve greater efficiency and production. Moreover, with this investment, we see enthusiasm and engagement from our maintenance team who appreciate our commitment to their professional development.”

For workers who have been on the job for decades like Santos, the training is a way to keep digital skills current. “For those who are mid- or late career, who perhaps haven’t had to navigate the enrollment process, time commitment and commuting aspects of college, the convenience of the mobile classroom has been a welcome innovation,” said Maureen Pansky, senior human resources manager at Oatey’s manufacturing plant.

There is a real demand for these mobile units, especially for older workers who need to learn new skills or enhance their skills to move forward, said Phyllis Cummins, senior research scholar at the Scripps Gerontology Center at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She is examining the role that community colleges can play for workers ages 40 to 64 to help them remain competitive in the labor market.

The students she has interviewed were all “very concerned about keeping their skills up-to-date and having opportunities to improve their skills,” Cummins said. The good news: “Because of very low unemployment rates, employers are taking on more of the responsibility for providing training and opportunities, which can also help workers, for example, shift to a new position in manufacturing as technology makes some jobs obsolete.”

One of the mobile lab pioneers is Northeast Wisconsin Technical College in Green Bay. “We started in 2010 with our first one, which taught computer numerical machining,” said Mark Weber, dean of trades and engineering technologies. “Our goal was to bring training to rural high schools and introduce students to advanced manufacturing careers. We give them hands-on experience with electromechanical and automation engineering training and teach maintenance technician skills for manufacturing plants.”

Today, the classrooms-on-wheels are offered in seven counties and 36 high schools, and they have expanded to employer-site training, especially in rural areas, Weber said. The college also operates a lab specializing in information technology. “It has clearly taken off,” he said.

Mobile labs from Pueblo Community College in Pueblo, Colorado, deliver workforce training in a range of advanced manufacturing skills via classrooms housed in seven trailers (an eighth is in production.) They contain multimedia instructor stations and specialized equipment. To date, the labs have been used in eight Colorado counties and in Utah and New Mexico.

“We had a manufacturing partnership in this region who was telling us they really needed a training solution that was more flexible and where they wouldn’t have to send their employees to an off-site location,” said Amanda Corum, executive director of Pueblo Corporate College, a division of Pueblo Community College that networks with local businesses. “It’s easier and cheaper for them if the classes were right there at their facility.”

“Much of our service area is rural,” she added, “so we also set up in a general location and multiple people can come for training, or employers can send their employees.”

Students run the gamut from eighth-graders learning about careers to incumbent workers to those learning new skills to enter manufacturing. “We also take training programs to those who are incarcerated and going to be released in one or two years to provide them with jobs skills they will need so have a sustainable job when released,” Corum said.

The numbers speak for themselves: “Our Pueblo Corporate College team has provided over 160,000 hours of ‘earn as you learn’ training,” Patty Erjavec, president of Pueblo Community College, said. “Those completing the training see, on average, an initial 3 percent increase in pay.”

One benefit for employers is the convenience. “It is a little insane how easy it is,” said Ron Francis, plant manager for pewag Inc., an industrial chain manufacturer in Pueblo. “It’s great because we’re able to grab our employees in training back if we need them since they are not off site.”

Another advantage is that “the instructors are the same ones you get if you went to the college,” Francis said. “They know the material really well and set it up so our guys can be a success from the minute they walk back out.”

Dylan Rebensdorf, 23, is one of the pewag employees taking advantage of the on-site classes. “Everything they’re able to teach in that lab you can see for yourself on the work floor,” he said.

The upside is tough to ignore: “I would love to see this all over the country for workers like me,” Santos, the Oatey maintenance specialist, said. “I have been here for 30 years, and the mobile training is really giving me the opportunity to grow and stay on the job longer than I might have been able to do without it.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/22/education/learning/mobile-job-training-community-college.html" id="009b15f0-6052-3a1c-afaa-39b4081597fe">The New York Times</a>.

Ruben Santos, a technical maintenance specialist for Oatey, a Cleveland-based commercial and residential plumbing product manufacturer and distributor, has returned to a place he hasn’t been in 30 years: the classroom.

These College Classes Are Going to Work

<h1>DURHAM, N.C. — When you think of Duke University, the image of its gothic-style chapel may come to mind, or perhaps Cameron Indoor Stadium, the raucous center of the Blue Devil basketball games. But tucked along Campus Drive here, amid the stately tall pines, the 65,000-square-foot Nasher Museum of Art has become a hub for students.</h1>

Across the country, university and college museums run the gamut from those featuring contemporary art and ancient relics mostly used as teaching tools to world-class collections tackling groundbreaking projects and traveling exhibitions.

While not typically top of mind as a go-to destination, college and university art museums have a common goal: to raise the bar for the academic and cultural life of a campus and its environs.

“The mission of the Nasher is to expose students at Duke to the highest quality of art and exhibitions and also to have them see what we do as part of their learning,” said Sarah Schroth, the museum’s director.

Following is a selection of college and university museums.

— Duke University

The Nasher highlights artists of African descent and female artists — those who have been historically underrepresented or omitted by art institutions. The namesake and founder of the museum, Raymond Nasher, a collector of modern and contemporary sculpture, graduated from Duke in 1943.

The museum opened in 2005 with an exhibition of works from Nasher’s collection. Today, it’s home to about 13,000 pieces of art. In addition to a handful of major exhibitions each year, the museum hosts a variety of performances by dancers, musicians and poets. The artists in the latest exhibition include Judy Baca, Luis Cruz Azaceta, Jorge de la Vega, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.

— Dartmouth College

A $50 million renovation and expansion — adding three object-study rooms and six galleries — recently opened at the Hood Museum of Art after two years of construction. Students and visitors have access to its 65,000-object collection including works by Rembrandt, Francisco Goya, Mark Rothko, Yayoi Kusama, Georgia O’Keeffe, Frank Stella and Julie Mehretu, among others.

It’s acknowledged for its collection of nearly 7,000 objects in its Native American holdings, including archaeological materials, 19th-century beadwork and hundreds of contemporary items. A 2,400-object Melanesian collection features works from every major island in the region extending from the island of New Guinea in the southwestern Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea, and eastward to Fiji. It also features the Owen and Wagner Collection of Indigenous Australian Art.

— Rutgers University

The Zimmerli Museum’s Russian and Soviet nonconformist art holdings contain over 22,000 objects by more than 1,000 artists and provide an overview from the 14th century to the present. The media include carved stone icons, paintings on canvas and panel, sculpture, works on paper, photography, video, artists’ books, and other self-published underground texts, or samizdat.

There’s a notable collection of 19th-century lubki, simple folk prints of Russia. In addition to art made in Russia, the collection includes examples of nonconformist art produced in the Soviet republics from Armenia to Uzbekistan. It also features ancient to contemporary art including French art of the 19th century.

The current major show, “Becoming John Marin: Modernist at Work,” features works by one of the major figures of American modernism. There are also new portraits of a son of a former slave — Paul Robeson, a singer, actor and activist — by current artists, to celebrate the coming centennial of his graduation from Rutgers.

— Colby College

A collection of nearly 900 works by figurative painter Alex Katz is a highlight at the college’s museum of art. It recently acquired three etchings by Rembrandt made in the mid-1600s, bringing its collection of prints by the Dutch master to a dozen. The print collection includes works by Picasso, Albrecht Dürer, Goya and James McNeill Whistler.

The museum, which was founded in 1959, comprises five wings, nearly 8,000 works, and more than 36,000 square feet of exhibition space. A current exhibition, “Theaster Gates: Facsimile Cabinet of Women Origin Stories,” includes nearly 3,000 images from the Johnson Publishing Co. archive. Founded in 1942, Johnson Publishing recorded the lives of black Americans for more than 70 years through the magazines Ebony and Jet.

— University of Texas, Austin

Founded in 1963, the Blanton Museum of Art is considered one of the largest university art museums in the country with collections of nearly 18,000 objects. A must-see here is Ellsworth Kelly’s 2,715-square-foot limestone and stained-glass chapel, “Austin,” with an 18-foot redwood totem that was logged in the 19th century in the interior. Kelly gave the design plans to the museum just before his death, and it was opened to the public last year.

While the Blanton features works by U.S. and contemporary artists, including Joan Mitchell, Mark Rothko and Alice Baber, it has been at the vanguard among museums in collecting modern and contemporary Latin American art. It recently bolstered its holdings from the Spanish and Portuguese colonial era with an acquisition of 119 paintings, sculptures, furniture and silverwork collected by Roberta and Richard Huber.

— University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

This museum of art, known as UMMA, has a permanent collection of more than 20,000 works collected over 150 years and features big hitters like Helen Frankenthaler, Picasso, Monet and Warhol. The museum also hosts around 20 special exhibitions per year.

A current exhibition, “Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today,” explores how the internet culture has influenced visual art through more than 40 works across an array of media — painting, performance, photography, sculpture, video and web-based projects. A coming exhibition The Six Senses of Buddhism focuses on works from its collection associated with different types of Japanese Buddhism, engaging all of the six senses: sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste and mind.

The gallery experience incorporates the sound of chanting, the scent of incense, the feel of bronze, ceramic, and silk and the creation of mental images.

— University of California, Los Angeles

The Fowler Museum, which opened in 1963, has a strong accent on global arts and cultures highlighting works from Africa, Asia, the Pacific and the indigenous Americas. Its permanent collections total over 120,000 art and ethnographic and 600,000 archaeological objects, but it’s the museum’s African art collection that makes it standout as a leader in the exhibition and preservation of art from Africa.

A current exhibition, “Inheritance: Recent Video Art from Africa,” features video works by contemporary African artists who are contending with inherited political, social, and environmental realities in their respective countries — Zimbabwe, Nigeria, South Africa — and the costs of colonial legacies.

— Northwestern University

The Block Museum of Arton the Evanston, Illinois, campus has four galleries to showcase exhibitions and a 150-seat auditorium. An evolving permanent collection of about 6,000 works focuses primarily on prints, photography and drawings. Recently, the museum partnered with Northwestern’s Program of African Studies on the exhibition “Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange Across Medieval Saharan Africa.”

Caravans of Gold is the first major exhibition addressing the scope of Saharan trade and the shared history of West Africa, the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe from the eighth to 16th centuries. Displaying more than 250 artworks, the exhibition features loans from partner institutions in Mali, Morocco, and Nigeria, many of which are being seen in North America for the first time.

— Princeton University

This museum has collections of more than 100,000 objects. The works include Greek and Roman ceramics, marbles and bronzes, Roman mosaics, stained glass from medieval Europe and European paintings from the early Renaissance through the 19th century. The collection of 20th-century and contemporary art has an emphasis on undervalued artists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It is also noted for its collections of more than 27,000 photographs.

“Confronting Childhood” is a current exhibition spanning more than 150 years with glimpses of children and their families through paintings and primarily photography, including artists such as Diane Arbus, Ruth Bernhard and Lewis Carroll.

— Williams College

There are around 15,000 works of art in the holdings of the Williams College Museum of Art that spotlight work by African-American artists, work by female artists, and international contemporary art. A current intriguing exhibition is “possible selves: queer foto vernaculars,” which presents the global impact of queer identities on the evolution of portrait photography bringing together works from the museum’s collection alongside over 200 images from social media. Straddling two galleries and 60 years of photography.

The exhibition is the first “to link the voices and experiences of queer folk around the world to the evolution of an art genre,” said Horace Ballard, an assistant curator who organized the show. “In breaking down the barriers between snapshots, selfies and art, the exhibition equates queer portraiture with political action. My hope is that the audacity of the work inspires visitors to build more inclusive, equitable and inquisitive communities.”

This article originally appeared in <a id="09ce2b4f-74da-4ae9-a2d1-2c6235802878" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/12/arts/college-university-museums.html">The New York Times</a>.

While not typically top of mind as a go-to destination, college and university art museums have a common goal: to raise the bar for the academic and cultural life of a campus and its environs.

Raising the cultural bar on campuses

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Kerry Hannon

Articles written by the author

In the #MeToo Era, Museums Celebrate Women

These College Classes Are Going to Work

Raising the cultural bar on campuses