The goal of the University's new academic plan is to create an outstanding educational environment for undergraduate and graduate study and to extend the research, scholarship, and values of this environment to as broad a specialist and public audience as possible. The William Benton Museum of Art can contribute substantially to the University's academic mission through the intersection of scholarship, teaching, and outreach from among its many activities. How this can be accomplished will be outlined below. In addition, questions of staffing and funding will be addressed.

The Benton Museum can directly contribute to undergraduate and graduate education through its collections, its exhibitions and programs, and its staff. The collections as they grow can be and should be directed to as broad an educational role as possible and to serving as many constituencies as possible while maintaining the highest level of quality. Exhibitions and programs should as well contribute to the educational process. The Museum's principle community is the University, and the Museum should strive to be viewed as part of the educational process. Finally, the Museum's senior staff – the Director, the Curator of Collections and the Curator of Academic Programs (if hired) – should all have PhDs. The two Curators should, as part of their duties, teach one course in the academic department of their specialization. [The present Curator teaches 17th and 18th century courses in the Art and Art History Department.] This direct involvement in the academics of the University would utilize the specialist knowledge of the Curators, broaden the offerings of an academic department, and make the Museum a direct contributor to the education of the students.

All significant exhibitions organized by the Benton Museum will in the future have a catalogue. These will be written by the Director or Curator of Collections or Curator of Academic Programs (see below for a description of this position) or an invited scholar. They will be written to scholarly standards and will contribute to the overall body of knowledge in their respective areas. Scholarly import, not length, will be paramount.

As time allows, the three senior staff members will contribute to scholarly journals in their fields, and they will be expected to participate in scholarly activities such as lectures and conferences at other universities and art museums.

The thrust of this initiative is to raise the Museum's profile nationally, and the Museum's increased stature will reflect positively on the University.

The two greatest impediments to succeeding are a lack of time and a lack of funding. The former is lessened by a senior staff of three all of whom are responsible exhibitions, as well as by exhibitions that are up for longer periods, and by exhibitions that are ready made. Only proper funding will ameliorate the latter problem, but one can look to the budget, grants and endowment funding. Nonetheless, raising the scholarly stature of the Museum would be an extremely important goal within the parameters of the academic plan.

The Benton Museum is in a unique position to foster the advantages of diversity in a university education and environment. Diversity provides "opportunities for students to experience different perspectives and cultures [which are] essential to preparing them for their future as citizens of a global society," and the Museum can in at least two ways contribute in a meaningful way to this goal.

First, by building collections that continue past directions but also new ones that reflect the broader cultural awareness of today's world. Only in the last ten years has the Museum colleted outside the boundaries on North America and Western Europe, but a more global perspective is certainly desirable and to the Museum's advantage.

Second, the ideal presentation of exhibitions and programming over the average four year stay of a student would, as far as is feasible, touch on the major geographic areas of the world: North America; the Caribbean and Latin America; Western Europe and Russia; the Middle East; Sub-Saharan Africa; Asia and South East Asia; Australia and the Pacific Islands. The art exhibited and written about can be politically motivated, socially founded, culturally critical, commercially based, environmentally judgmental, self-referential, historically significant and both historic and contemporary. The goal, however, would be a culturally and socially diverse body of offerings that explore through history and our modern age the complexity of our world.

By its nature, the Benton Museum is involved with "public engagement" through its exhibitions and programs (FY 2007-08 attendance, 34,220). However, in addition to exhibitions, special lectures and special events, the Museum has an ongoing program of noon gallery talks, docent tours and children's programs that are aimed at a non-academic audience. The children's programs are the responsibility of the Education Coordinator who works specifically with K thru 12th grade school children. Programs for school groups are either tied to an exhibition or to specific parts of the collections. For example, a Massachusetts' middle school comes annually to see the molas, and Windham and Coventry middle schoolers come annually to learn how art teaches us about our own culture and history (FY 2007-08, ca. 1,515 school children).

There is one area, however, where the Museum can expand its efforts: adult education. This would be the responsibility of the Curator for Academic Programs (if hired). Besides the special lectures and symposia that attract an adult audience, the Museum could institute an adult education program such as found at many other museums. Specifically, a Saturday morning class over a period of three weekends that addresses in detail a specific topic that is tied to a current exhibition. This class would be offered for a nominal fee. taught by a specialist who would be paid, and aimed at an educated and intellectually curious audience. An example would be the history of European sculpture during the time of the Rodin exhibition. Retirees would definitely be targeted.

While adequate funding is an issue for every area of the Museum's operations, not every area can be a priority in the search for external funding. However, one should always be aware of opportunities for endowing positions such as the Director's or for endowments directed at acquisitions, publications, and programming.

Endowments that specifically support all areas of exhibition making, presentation, and scholarship, specifically catalogue support, would be a major priority. While such endowments will never be the sole funding source for programming and publications, they can take some pressure off the operating budget to support exhibitions, they can support larger and more expensive projects than would otherwise be possible, and they would allow undertaking worthwhile exhibitions that might not be readily funded from granting sources.

The pursuit of such endowments will be done in conjunction with the University Foundation and the Dean of the School of Fine Arts.

At this time, the Museum should have three senior level positions: the Director, the Curator of Collections, and the Curator of Academic Programs. The latter would be a new position. The common qualifications for these positions would be PhDs, publications or equivalent scholarly activity, and for the two curatorial positions the requirement that they teach one course a year in the appropriate academic department. Besides their individual responsibilities all three would be involved with creating exhibitions and building the collections.

The new position-Curator of Academic Programs-would oversee University level relations, adult learning programs, and participate in the making of exhibitions. This Curator would promote the Museum as a educational component of the University to faculty for incorporation into their courses and teaching. The connection to faculty teaching would be through special exhibitions and the Museum collections. The Curator would also develop scholarly programming—conferences, lectures, adult learning courses-in relation to Museum exhibitions. Whenever possible these programs would be in collaboration with academic departments of the University. The development of adult learning courses, probably in conjunction with the Center for Learning in Retirement, would as well be this person's responsibility.

The remaining positions would be in the following areas: Registrar; Membership and Public Relations (combined); Educational Coordinator; Store Manager; Asst. Store Manager; Exhibition Technician and Facilities Manager (combined). It would be preferable, as well, to have a combined graphic design and photographer position and a computer technologies individual included in the staffing. At present, students fill the first two roles and the SFA technicians the third.