Introduction to Museum Studies is one of the classes that was cut in the Midnight Massacre. Out of that class, came the Frida Kahlo Way Initiative which successfully changed the name of the street where City College’s main campus fronts from its association with a disgraced public official to a beloved artist who represents women, people of color, people with disabilities, and queer people’s struggles.
Out of the decolonizing/indigenizing museums and community engagement focus of the class has also come the Land Acknowledgment Initiative. This initiative would institute a purposeful acknowledgment that City College sits on Ramaytush Ohlone land and owes respect and commitment to the ongoing struggles of indigenous people. It received early and solid support from the Associated Students Executive Council and is now making its way through the College constituencies.
This summer, due to a collaboration between Museum Studies and SFMOMA, the San Francisco scale model will be assembled at City College for first the first time since 1942, when it was here at City Hall. But Museum Studies has been canceled, so the collaborative work planned for the students this semester will not happen unless the bridge funding goes forward and we can move on a late start schedule.
In the Curriculum Committee pipeline, now aborted due to the Midnight Massacre, is the Museum Studies and Social Justice Certificate, responding to the need in museums to diversify their staffs. With its population of primarily low income students and students of color, City College is in a unique position to make this happen. Many low-income students and students of color are losing the opportunity to enter a field which is crying out for their participation.
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