Shogren Consulting | Heritage, Museum & Cultural Planning

Our Principal, Sam Shogren, travels to Toronto in mid-August to receive his introductory training to the principals and practices of LEAD - Leadership for Environment and Development.  Shogren will be joining colleagues selected from throughout Canada at the Humber College Institute of Technology & Advanced Learning in Toronto for six days of workshops, lectures and hands-on expereince.  This first LEAD training session titled: “Sustainability in a Changing World: Energy and Cities” will teach LEAD’s fundamental tools for facilitating change in communities and organizations through multi-stakeholder process towards a sustainable future. The principlas and practices of sustainability will be explored both in the classroom and in the field with trips to Humber College’s new Centre for Urban Ecology, the Toronto Transit Commission, Toronto City Hall, Toronto Community Housing Corporation and their project at Regents Park–a billion dollar urban/public housing redevelopment project, and a visit to FOCUS - A grass roots youth collaborative and arts education project located within Regents Park.

This was a fantastic conference organized, planned, and hosted by the graduate students in the Museology Program at the University of Washington. Close to 100 people attended representing museums and academic programs from both coasts, the Midwest, Canada and China!

Significant news for us here at Shogren Consulting is the warm reception for our Principal Sam Shogren’s paper titled: Museums, Starbucks and the Third Place Way: Civil Society and the Revisioned Museum. Presenting in the first general session, Sam’s concepts of museums as Third Places, curtailing construction of new museums to seek new community partnerships and the emphasis on sustainability were influential throughout the conference.

Look here shortly for a link to a version of the paper Sam presented.

Good Morning - Later today Sam will be presenting a draft of his paper for the Transforming Museums conference in Seattle before the students in the Arts Administration and Museum Studies Programs at the University of Oregon.

The paper’s draft titled: Museums, Starbucks, and the Third Place Way: the Museums Role in Civil Society proposes a new role for museums in our communities by   proposing that our real role is in fostering civil discourse concerning contemporary   topics and utilizing the museum’s collections to bring insights into the public debate.

Sam also argues that contemporary models of museum development and continued growth are not sustainable. The paper concludes with a new vision for museum in the 2st century as Third Places built upon a model of sustainability that envisions curtailed construction by the museum of new space (perhaps we have museum bloat?) that is replaced by community partnerships to build new museum spaces in new civic and commercial buildings taking the museum to the public.

Check back as a drafts of this exciting paper will be made available under the RESOURCES tab on this site!