How does a museum move from a "cool experiment" with AI to a sustainable workflow? This session explores Utah's intentional steps to integrate Google Gemini across its workforce, providing a macro-to-micro blueprint. From state-level policy and departmental change management to practical collections applications like transcription, learn and ASPIRE to innovate with a unified strategy. This session includes a live prompting lab to translate policy into effective daily practice.

Serving on a museum board is often an aspirational but opaque goal for museum professionals. How are board members recruited and what does service entail? This moderated discussion demystifies board service from both sides, exploring pathways to participation, expectations around governance and fundraising, and the skills institutions need today. Attendees will gain practical insight into pursuing board roles and contributing to mission-driven leadership and public trust.

This highly interactive session builds upon previous sessions at WMA, CAM, AAM, and efforts to launch an Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Museums Association. Through polling and facilitated discussions, participants will engage with others who identify as AANHPI, those who work in AANHPI museums, and allies. Participants will have multiple opportunities to candidly share experiences, frustrations, and hopes from their personal/professional experiences. This session is open to all WMA conference attendees.

At the Natural History Museum of Utah, A Climate of Hope (ACoH) offers a path to rational hope. This exhibit shows how climate change affects Utah's people and places, while also helping visitors envision a healthy, prosperous, low-carbon future. In this session, exhibit developers and learning researchers share stories of ACoH, from prototyping to research-based iteration that continues today. Audience members will participate in activities to collectively imagine new ways of supporting visitor learning towards constructive hope amid climate change.

Physical security walked into a bar… and got carded! Museum security is no joke, but it can be enjoyable. In this session, museum operations and security personnel will work with audience members to troubleshoot challenges in real time. Drop your own public safety quandary in the hat and collaborate with peers to find solutions. 

Museums are often seen as permanent stewards…but what if we reimagined our role as temporary, ethical custodians? This session introduces the "Third Place" model, where museums provide culturally responsive interim care for ancestors when direct Tribal possession is not immediately feasible. Grounded in sovereignty, trust, and accountability, this framework reduces barriers to repatriation and reframes stewardship as transitional, collaborative, and community-driven.

If Saint-Exupéry was right, "a goal without a plan is just a wish," then join us and get excited about planning. Explore practical tools to create and work with your plan. Gain a deeper understanding of why we plan and how plans are practical tools across museum activities – exhibitions, programming, annual goals, "what if" scenarios. Bring your planning challenges and explore tools that can help you be successful now and in the future.

For many indigenous communities, darkness is a time of creative genesis and regeneration, a time for hope beyond the fear. From fiscal constraints to grants that have disappeared to federal staff that are no longer in positions of leadership and support, the impacts and despair are real and reach across our museum field. In these troubling times, we will hear from multiple museum practitioners who will share their programs, exhibitions, practices and beliefs that will help attendees keep the fire alive, stirring our passions and purposes.

Museums often face the challenge of attracting and retaining talented staff in a field where compensation lags behind other industries. This session examines how museums can become employers of choice by strengthening the employee experience beyond wages. Using various initiatives and case studies as a foundation, this session will highlight approaches to recognition, growth, and culture, followed by a facilitated discussion to surface practical, adaptable strategies across diverse museum contexts.