Docents, Interpreters, and Interns:

2. Docents, Interpreters, and Interns: Relying on Volunteerism

4. What is a docent? • Word “docent” has the Latin root, meaning “to teach,” just as curator is derived from “curate” – both job titles borrowed from the Catholic Church. • Possible connection with early envisioning of the art museum as a quasi-sacred space of uplift and improvement

5. What is the job of a docent? • Unpaid volunteer • Leads tour groups through museum exhibitions • Also called interpreters, gallery instructors, tour guides, or gallery guides • Each year, hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren and other visitors are guided by docents

7. Early Education Departments • Early docents set the foundation in today’s art museums for education departments • Currently docents are primarily women, with numbers in the thousands, especially in art museums

8. Early History of Docents in American Art Museums: 1890-1930 • The Museum of Fine Arts, with its origins in 1807 as a gentlemen’s reading club, the Boston Athenaeum, introduced the first docents, 1890-1930 • Benjamin Ives Gilman (Secretary and Trustee for the MFA,1851-1933) conceived of docents as gallery guides. He and a group of men, the first officers of the museum, provided docent services in the earliest years • Docents representative of an altruistic, hospitable form of museum outreach that shaped the early practice of docentry • Demographics of the art museum audience changed • Social and educational opportunities for American women and children changed • Definition and role of a docent changed

9. Continue Early Docents • In the first decades, docents’ tasks were carried out by professional men (1890-1910) but by 1930 had become the volunteer work of middle class women • Gender is important issue to consider when thinking about docents • Post Civil War America unstable, advent of progressivism as an organized political force in the 1890s, which fueled the expanding educational efforts of the MFA (docents)

10. Continue Early Docents • 1880: the Met offers classes for school teachers • 1892: J. Randall Coolidge (trustee, MFA) proposes that the museum begin using expert guides • 1895: National Education Association called upon art museums to “be more helpful in public instruction” • 1901: Teachers petition the MFA. 1904, official beginning of public lectures, 1908, free gallery talks • 1910: Women’s Educational and Industrial Union publishes a leaflet describing docents and suggesting docentry as a new profession for college educated women • 1912: Huger Elliot becomes Supervisor of Educational Work at the MFA • Gilman wrote about docents and how they should teach, saying that it is more important to inspire a new visitor to the museum than to inform about history or art making

11. Continue Early Docents • 1908: Florence Nightingale Levy contributes to publication, “The Educational Work of the Museum,” in a chapter on public art education • Early pairing of docents and Progressives (larger historical context of progressive advocacy for educational ideals) • 1915: first large scale conference of museum instructors, only eight years after MFA begins practice

12. Continue Early Docents: Children • Charles W. Eliot (President of Harvard University, 1869-1909) and the Committee for the Utilization of the Museum by Schools and Colleges offer teachers and students free admission, new era of closer relationships between schools and children • Benjamin Ives Gilman decries trend: “educational racket” attempting to “turn children into habitues of the museum” • By 1915 young audiences at MFA had grown to nearly 9,000 children • By 1927 the MFA begins to look like it does today

13. Continue Early Docents: Role of Women • By early 1900s middle class women have smaller families, more servants and new labor-saving appliances • Seek new areas of expertise that bring about personal changes in their individual social status, collective changes in their local communities, and eventually, collective enfranchisement through national voting rights • Social mobility of a young American democratic society (unlike Europe) • Many encumbrances hinder a woman’s full participation in public life • Domestic reformers were conservative activists who tried to improve women’s lives without upsetting the status quo. • 1868: First women’s club in NYC; New England Women’s Club in Boston – Become important organizational structures which lead to significant progressive reforms. Women gain many skills from participation in these clubs, including the ability to become docents teaching in American Art Museums • 1870s new women’s colleges offer women education beyond high school, including Smith, Wellesley, Simmons, and Radcliffe. These lead to associations with Museums. Docents become the “New profession for college-bred women.”

14. Continue Early Docent • From 1907-1920 docent hired, paid staff of museum; status changes as they become administrators of the museum’s department of education • A separation drawn between supervisor and docent is pivotal • 1931 Marion Doane is supervisor of Educational Work, first woman in charge of education at the MFA • Women’s clubs provide educated, unpaid, volunteer docent work to art museums • Women (upper and middle class) restricted from most forms of employment, especially if married • Teaching children acceptable for single women • MFA’s audience numbers increase, docents seen as the perfect solution • Docents figure prominently in the modern origins of museum education

15. Volunteerism Today • Who volunteers and why? • Who do we want for volunteers in the future? • How do we build positive, long-term relationships with our volunteers? • What administrative structures will we need to support their effectiveness (which turns out to be OUR effectiveness)?

17. Contemporary Scene for Docents, Volunteers and Interns • 65.4 million adults volunteered a median of 50 hours from 2004-2005 • Largest number of volunteers come from 35-44 age bracket • Women are more likely to volunteer than men • Total value for volunteer time in 2005 is estimated at $280 billion, based on the hourly rate of $18.04 established by Independent Sector (U.S. Dept. of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics) • Baby boomers began turning 60 in 2006 and 77 million are approaching retirement • Other end of the spectrum are teens, half of whom donate their time

19. Canada’s Code for Volunteer Involvement • Board and senior management show strong support for volunteers • Clear policies and procedures provide a framework • Professional volunteer program manager in place • Staff and management welcome volunteers who are treated as valuable and integral members of the team • Meaningful volunteer assignments • Recruitment reaches out to diverse sources • Clear and consistent screening process • Orientation and training is in place • Volunteers have appropriate support and supervision with opportunities to receive and give feedback • Volunteer contributions are regularly acknowledged

20. Teen Volunteers • 30 % of students in grades 6-12 volunteer more than 80 hours a year! • 93 % anticipate volunteering as adults • 38% say that volunteering provides an opportunity to combine interests and talents • 32% believe the primary purpose of volunteering is to be exposed to new experiences and new people • 44% find volunteering highly rewarding (USA Weekend Teens and Volunteering Survey, 2005)

21. Junior Docents Take Classmates on Museum Tour

22. Major phases in volunteerism within a museum 1). Recruitment and interviewing: where do you find your docents, how do you interview them, how do you find out if they are trustworthy or talented?

23. 2) Training program: what are the elements of your training? Do you teach them content? Do they shadow others? What is essential to know or master before they are doing the work?

24. 3) Actual teaching and supervision: how do you supervise volunteers while they are teaching? What happens when they are not effective, or good teachers? What policies and procedures do you have in place for evaluation, and moving an ineffective volunteer on to another job, or out of the organization?

25. 4) On going training: What kind of on-going education/training would you ideally give your docents? Lecture based? Museum field trips? Access to curator talks? Regular meetings? How do you recognize/thank your docent? What perks do you offer the volunteer?