St. Louis Art Museum Leader Says It Needs To Do More To Boost Diversity

Arts

St. Louis Art Museum Leader Says It Needs To Do More To Boost Diversity

漏 2024 外网天堂 | By Jeremy D. Goodwin

Published October 12, 2020 at 5:03 AM CDT

The 1904 Beaux Arts Main Building with the new East Building in the foreground — The St. Louis Art Museum has expanded significantly under the leadership of Brent Benjamin. But a recent report details the lack of improvement around diversity.

Leaders of the St. Louis Art Museum are reviewing compiled by a study group within its board of commissioners about how well the museum鈥檚 staff and programming reflect the diverse population of St. Louis.

It includes 140 potential action items. They include hiring an executive-level diversity officer and identifying more job candidates of color.

Brent R. Benjamin will step away after being at the helm of St. Louis Art Museum since 1999. — Brent Benjamin said the St. Louis Art Museum has a "clustering" of employees of color in lower-level positions.

The museum reported to the Zoo Museum District鈥檚 board of directors this summer that 78.3% of its total paid staff members are white, and 85.7% of its 56 supervisory jobs are filled by white employees.

漏 2024 外网天堂鈥檚 Jeremy D. Goodwin spoke with the museum's director, Brent R. Benjamin, about his plans to address issues of diversity, equity and inclusion at the institution .

This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.

Jeremy D. Goodwin: The report states a goal of making the institution a national leader on diversity. How are you going to do that?

Brent Benjamin: It really is about institutionalizing the museum鈥檚 diversity and inclusion lens so we鈥檙e looking at what we鈥檙e doing in a much more consistent way across the things that the museum undertakes.

Goodwin: Where have you fallen short on this in the past?

Benjamin: Well I don鈥檛 know that we鈥檝e fallen short. I think we鈥檝e been pretty successful with what we鈥檝e tried to do, but I think that there are things that we haven鈥檛 worked as hard at as others.

Let鈥檚 really think about how we would create as diverse a pool as possible when we have a position that we鈥檙e hiring for.

Goodwin: One of the suggestions was, as you say, to 鈥渆stablish a goal for a diverse workforce proportionate to the racial and ethnic makeup of the St. Louis community.鈥� Would you say that your staff looks like St. Louis right now?

Benjamin: The staff looks pretty good in terms of St. Louis鈥� demographics. And the audience looks really good, the audience is actually more diverse than in the metro area. There鈥檚 more diversity in the audience than in the metro, which is, a lot of people would be surprised by that. But we鈥檝e been doing some polling and some data gathering, so that鈥檚 good.

So we鈥檙e not in a terrible position. But I do think that there is a clustering of minority staff members at lower levels in the organization, and there is a relative thinness at the upper levels of the organization that is typical of many kinds of organizations and certainly art museums.

Goodwin: Right now do you have Black managers or department heads?

Benjamin: We do. Yes.

Goodwin: And I want to acknowledge, we鈥檙e two white men talking about this right now. But when you have metrics with respect to audience or workforce, there's objective ways to measure progress.

Benjamin: That鈥檚 right. And we鈥檒l be reporting on that. And that鈥檚 part of the accountability, to say: Here鈥檚 where we were, and it's been 12 months and here鈥檚 where we are, and it鈥檚 been another 12 and here鈥檚 where we are. So that鈥檚 important as well, because if you鈥檙e not measuring it, it鈥檚 kind of hard to manage it.

Museum director Brent Benjamin and Ronald Ollie, whose gift of 81 pieces by African American artists stands as a highlight of Benjamin's tenure. — Brent Benjamin looks on in 2019 as Ronald Ollie announces his gift to museum of 81 works by African American artists.

Goodwin: Well you鈥檙e looking to depart sometime mid-year 2021. What improvements would you like to be seeing a year from now? What are the priority areas you鈥檝e identified as where you'd like to see a lot of time being spent?

Benjamin: Obviously we want to be prioritizing those things that can be done relatively quickly, that are relatively inexpensive and that have high impact. And there are quite a few of those kinds of things on the list. So that鈥檚 where we'll be starting. And it鈥檚 140 items, so it鈥檚 not going to be implemented overnight. Some of this is going to happen before the end of 2020.

Goodwin: Can you name any of those items that you see has high impact and achievable?

Benjamin: Well I would say that one of the most important things to do is to implement an internal infrastructure that supports it.

Goodwin: An infrastructure 鈥� what does that mean?

Benjamin: That means to put some staff in place to actually operationalize it, and make sure that it鈥檚 actually happening in a consistent way across all the functions of the museum.

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