Director, Education

Job Summary: The Director, Education oversees the Education Department at the Stark Museum of Art and implements an innovative and ambitious calendar of onsite, offsite, and digital programs and engagement initiatives that create engaging art and history experiences for everyone.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Oversee and implement an innovative and ambitious calendar of onsite, offsite, and digital programs and engagement initiatives at Stark Museum of Art that create engaging art and history experiences for everyone.
• Envision and enact a coherent strategy of education and engagement, ensuring meaningful access for a diverse range of audiences, including Pre-K-12 students and teachers, college and university students and faculty, as well as general public audiences including young adults, children, families, and senior adults.
• Design and implement evaluation strategies for the museum’s onsite, offsite, and digital program and exhibition offerings, tracks and analyzes program participating, and utilizes analysis of trends for future planning for programming, staffing, and budgets.
• Supervise and support a staff of eleven museum educators, including a School Programs Manager, Public & Studio Programs Coordinator, eight part-time Teaching Artists, and one Art Education Scholar.
• Oversee, implement, and evaluate an innovative and engaging Community Gallery exhibition schedule including, but not limited to the museum’s existing student exhibition programs: Art: It’s Elementary for K-3rd Grades, Juried Student Art Exhibition for 4th-12th Grades, and College Juried Art Exhibition.
• Coordinates overall operations of education department including payroll using Paychex, budgets using Abila, and administrative reports with assistance of A & H Venue Administrative Assistant; providing ongoing financial management and operational stewardship.
• Oversee the Walter G. Riedell III Education Center facility including two studios, ceramic and glass kiln, multipurpose space, community gallery, and education storage.
• Collaborate and develop exhibitions in coordination with Exhibition Manager, Curator, Director of Collections & Exhibitions, and Executive Director, serving as a Visitor and Education advocate.

• Collaborate with the Stark Cultural Venues Marketing Department to develop and help implement marketing efforts for museum education programs and serves as primary liaison with marketing regarding research/interpretive content/expertise.

• Serve as project manager as needed.

• Maintains relationships with internal and external stakeholders.
• Ensures that all work undertaken by the education staff meets the highest ethical and professional standards.
• Develops and supports the capabilities of education staff members, enhancing exceptional ability and maintaining accountability.
• Provides a high level of energy and professionalism and infuse the staff with enthusiasm and drive to advance the mission of the Stark Museum of Art and the Stark Cultural Venues.
• Maintains and encourages open communication with Foundation personnel and Stark Cultural Venue staff and foster a productive, efficient, and team-oriented working environment.

• Other duties as assigned.

Supervisory Responsibilities:

Supervises School Program Manager and Public & Studio Program Coordinator and indirectly supervises Part-Time Teaching Artists and Art Education Scholar in accordance with the Foundation’s policies and applicable laws. Responsibilities include assisting in interviewing, training employees, assigning and directing work and appraising performance.

Expectations:

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skills, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Qualifications: Strong education and programming experience at art and or multi-disciplinary museum or informal learning setting with 5 years of progressive leadership responsibilities and a level of education appropriate to the position, preferably an advanced degree in Museum Studies, Education, Humanities, Art Education or related discipline.

• Proven success with innovative approaches to significantly enhance a cultural organization’s impact and contribution to the community.

• Proven understanding of interpretive and educational theory.
• Ability to devise and carry out educational and public programs, including preparation, training, facilitation and evaluation.
• Knowledge of and experience with best practices and evaluation of informal learning environments for people of all ages; experience teaching studio art to diverse audiences using a variety of mediums preferred.
• A track record of successfully working in a team setting to develop dynamic programs for students, educators, multi-generational and senior groups.

• Demonstrated ability to work cooperatively and effectively and to communicate well with a wide range of people, including paid and unpaid staff.
• Knowledge of objectives, curricula, and operation of schools and other educational institutions.
• Passion for art and the humanities and their educational role in today’s world.
• Ability to create, compose and edit written materials; ability to adapt text or narrative to audience.
• Proven ability to create and distribute asynchronous and synchronous digital learning content through a variety of platforms.
• Knowledge of research principles protocol, techniques and standards within museum and cultural organizations.
• Skill in organizing resources and establishing priorities.
• Strong planning and management background.
• Experience working on exhibition teams especially in the development of educationally based hands-on and brains-on components.
• Ability to devise and carry out collections based educational and public programs.
• Proven track record of successfully administering budgets.
• Demonstrated communication and interpersonal skills across all levels of an organization and with the public; ability to serve as spokesperson locally, regionally, and nationally.
• Highly motivated self-starter with a hands-on work ethic, good judgment, and mature thinking.
• Have a positive, can-do attitude and a sense of humor.

Physical Demands:

Most work is performed in a climate controlled environment. Vision requirements needed are color vision and the ability to adjust focus. The ability to see and hear is essential. Ability to enter data into the computer and be able to retrieve information by computer. Have good clear communication skills both verbally and written and able to understand spoken communications. Must be able to move between the museum and the education building.

Work Environment:

While performing the duties of this job, the employee will normally work in climate controlled environment; noise levels are generally quiet.

This Job Description does not necessarily constitute a complete statement of all duties and responsibilities comprising this position nor does it constitute a contract for employment.