This year at the WMA 2024 Annual Meeting, September 25-28 in Tucson, AZ, attendees will have the unique opportunity to hear from and connect with professionals from across the Western museum field and beyond, including three inspiring luncheon guest speakers.
Friday, September 27, 2024
On Friday, September 27, at the WMA Community Lunch, attendees will celebrate the WMA Community with special guest speaker Mike Murawski, author of Museums as Agents of Change. While enjoying a meal together, attendees will get a glimpse into how museums can be more human-centered.
Mike Murawski is a consultant, educator, and the author of Museums as Agents of Change: A Guide to Becoming a Changemaker (2021). He is the Co-Founder and Owner of Art Nature Place, a business focused on place-based learning, environmental education, and developing human-centered strategies for meaningful change. After more than 20 years of work in education and museums, Murawski has become an outspoken advocate for transformative change in museums, nonprofits, and communities.
The WMA Community Lunch will be held Saturday, September 27, in the Ventana Kiva Ballroom, 12:30pm to 1:45pm. Tickets are $67 each, and require pre-registration.
Saturday, September 28, 2024
The following afternoon, on Saturday, September 28, at the Indigenous Luncheon, attendees can enjoy a meal while meeting colleagues from tribal museums and supporters of Native American concerns. Attendees will welcome special guest speaker Jennifer Juan, Assistant Director of Community Engagement, Arizona State Museum.
Jennifer Juan (Tohono O’odham) is the Assistant Director of Community Engagement at Arizona State Museum. Community perspectives, place-making, and Native-focused collaborations have been at the heart of her career for the last 19 years and continues through the multi-vocality work being done in her position at ASM. In 2019, Ms. Juan received her BA in Museum Studies from the Institute of American Indian Arts (Santa Fe, NM) and in 2021 earned her MA in Museology with an emphasis on Evaluation from the University of Washington (Seattle, WA).
The Indigenous Luncheon will be held Saturday, September 28, in the Ventana, 12:15pm to 1:30pm. Tickets are $67 each, and require pre-registration.
Also on Saturday afternoon!
All Directors, Deputy Directors, CEOs, CFOs, Leadership Team Members, and Trustees are invited to attend the Directors & Leadership Team Luncheon. This event will feature guest speaker Jennifer Ortiz, Director of the Utah Historical Society. Jennifer will share her experiences building the state’s first dedicated state history museum, the Museum of Utah, which will open on the Capitol Complex in Salt Lake City in 2026.
Appointed in June 2021, Jennifer Ortiz serves as the Director of the Utah Historical Society. She brings close to twenty years of experience in the cultural sector to UHS where she oversees the building of the state’s first dedicated state history museum, the Museum of Utah, which will open on the Capitol Complex in Salt Lake City in 2026. In addition to her state-wide work, she serves at a national level as board member for the National Federation of State Humanities Councils and locally as board member for the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. Prior to her state-wide outreach work, Jennifer served as the Collections Manager for the Utah Museum of Fine Arts at the University of Utah managing an encyclopedic art collection of over 20,000 objects, in addition to roles at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Boston Museum of Science, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Jennifer holds an MA in History and Museum Studies from Tufts University and certificates in non-profit and change management from the Getty Leadership Program through Claremont Graduate University and University of Utah respectively. Through her work, Jennifer is passionate about elevating underrepresented narratives to share a more complete history of our collective experience.
The Directors & Leadership Team Luncheon will be held Saturday, September 28, at the Ventana, 12:15pm to 1:30pm. Tickets are $65 each, and require pre-registration.
If you’re interested in attending any of these three lunchtime happenings, we invite you to add them to your existing registration (or register for WMA 2024) on the WMA 2024 Registration online portal.
There are also two additional luncheons available to sign up for including the Storytellers and Supporters Luncheon (during which the recipient of the Charles Redd Award for Exhibition Excellence will present on the winning exhibition), and the Registrar’s Committee Western Region Luncheon.
We look forward to seeing you there!
View the WMA 2024 Preliminary Program
The Early Bird Registration deadline is July 26, 2024.
Discounted rates are for WMA and MAA members only.
Not a WMA member? Learn More About WMA Membership.
