Noted Arts Educator to Address Museums10 Summit

AMHERST — Arts educator Patty Bode will discuss ways museums can engage with their communities and broaden their audiences in the 21st century, in a keynote address at the fourth annual summit of Valley-based collaborative Museums10 on Monday, May 16. Bode’s talk, “Museums, Engagement, and Creating Social Change,” will take place at 4 p.m. at the Yiddish Book Center at 1021 West St. in Amherst. It is free and open to the public.

Bode has decades of experience working with museums through hands-on practice as an educator in urban schools, community arts programs, and teacher education, with a particular emphasis on collaborating with marginalized communities. In her address, she will discuss why access to and participation in museum life is a civil and human right in our democratic society. She will also offer case studies that demonstrate ways museums have been successful in engaging a wide range of audiences across race, social class, language, sexual orientation, and religion.

Currently a teacher at Springfield Conservatory of the Arts, a magnet public school, Bode is the former director of Art Education for Tufts University in affiliation with the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and was a visiting associate professor at Ohio State University’s Department of Arts Administration, Education and Policy. For more information, visit fivecolleges.edu and click ‘events.’

Museums10 is a collaboration of seven campus and three campus-affiliated museums that work together to celebrate the collections and promote the programs of its member museums to local, regional, and national visitors. Museums10 is facilitated by Five Colleges, which provides administrative support for the partnership.