Gregory Allicar Museum of Art Receives Highest National Recognition
Awarded Accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums
The Gregory Allicar Museum of Art has achieved accreditation by the American Alliance of Museums, the highest national recognition afforded the nation’s museums. Accreditation conveys the museum’s excellence to its community, including governments, funders, outside agencies, and the museum-going public.
Of the nation’s estimated 33,000 museums, just over 1070 are currently accredited. The Gregory Allicar Museum of Art at Colorado State University is one of only 24 museums accredited in Colorado, just one of three that is Core Documents Verified and participated in the Museum Assessment Program, and the only one with accreditation in Fort Collins. Since 1906, the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) has existed to develop standards and best practices, gather and share knowledge, and provide advocacy on issues of concern to the entire museum community.
In its letter notifying the Museum of its accreditation, the AAM Accreditation Committee stated that: “The museum is an excellent example of how a departmental gallery can grow into vibrant museum thanks to a clear vision, a strategic plan that marries the accreditation goal with its new location, strong financial and administrative support from the University and the community, and a dedicated professional staff.”
Alliance Accreditation brings national recognition to a museum for its commitment to excellence, accountability, high professional standards and continued institutional improvement. Developed and sustained by museum professionals for over 45 years, the Alliance’s museum accreditation program is the field’s primary vehicle for quality assurance, self-regulation, and public accountability. It strengthens the museum profession by promoting practices that enable leaders to make informed decisions, allocate resources wisely, and remain financially and ethically accountable in order to provide the best possible service to the public.
“This is a tremendous milestone for the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art and clearly demonstrates the trajectory of excellence established by our founding director, Linny Frickman, to whom we are enormously and endlessly thankful.” Lynn Boland, Gregory Allicar Museum of Art director and Chief Curator
Accreditation is a very rigorous but highly rewarding process that examines all aspects of a museum’s operations. To earn accreditation a museum first must conduct a year of self-study, and then undergo a site visit by a team of peer reviewers. The Alliance’s Accreditation Commission, an independent and autonomous body of museum professionals, considers the self-study and visiting committee report to determine whether a museum should receive accreditation.
“Accredited museums are a community of institutions that have chosen to hold themselves publicly accountable to excellence,” said Laura L. Lott, Alliance president and CEO. “Accreditation is clearly a significant achievement, of which both the institutions and the communities they serve can be extremely proud.”
GREGORY ALLICAR MUSEUM OF ART invites individuals to engage with art and each other to inspire fresh perspectives and wonder. The museum is a catalyst for visual literacy and critical thinking that instills a passion for learning. With a growing and diverse art collection, expanded facilities, and dynamic on-and off-site programming, the museum is a cornerstone of Colorado State University’s arts initiatives and a link to alumni, Fort Collins, and our region. Always free and open to all, the museum invites visitors to revel in direct engagement with outstanding examples of visual art. The museum is dedicated to educational vitality, encouraging teaching and learning through interaction with art; welcoming engagement, embracing all audiences; and to honoring a diversity of art making across time periods, geographies, and cultures. We welcome visitors to enjoy a robust program of permanent and changing exhibitions and related programs, including workshops, lectures, and guided tours.
Gregory Allicar Museum of Art
Located in the University Center for the Arts
1400 Remington Street, Fort Collins, CO 80523
(970) 491-1989 | allicarmuseum@colostate.edu | artmuseum@colostate.edu
Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. | Thursday open until 7:30 p.m.
Closed University Holidays, Fall, Winter and Spring breaks, Home Football Games.
About the American Alliance of Museums
The American Alliance of Museums has been bringing museums together since 1906, helping to develop standards and best practices, gathering and sharing knowledge, and providing advocacy on issues of concern to the entire museum community. Representing more than 35,000 individual museum professionals and volunteers, institutions, and corporate partners serving the museum field, the Alliance stands for the broad scope of the museum community. For more information, visit www.aam-us.org.
A Note From Our Director
The Gregory Allicar Museum of Art has achieved accreditation by the American Alliance of Museums, the highest national recognition afforded the nation’s museums. Accreditation signifies excellence to the museum community, governments, funders, outside agencies, and the museum-going public.
Those not in the museum profession sometimes ask me, “What’s so important about accreditation?” “Does it help with loans? With grants?” The answers are “Yes and yes”; but that’s not the most important thing about accreditation.
At the heart of accreditation by the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) is excellence. It signals a museum that excels at its role as a steward of cultural history and one that achieves excellence in service to its community. Accreditation marks a museum that is meeting the standards of our field and striving to develop best practices. It means a museum is doing things right and is on the right track for the future.
It’s not an easy process, to put it mildly. Developing and articulating procedures and policies takes a great deal of time and thought. My predecessor, the indomitable Linny Frickman, began the process with the inception of the museum ten years ago, well before we were even the Allicar, in fact. With our AAM accreditation, we join an elite group of fewer than five percent of U.S. museums. We are one of only two such museums in the Northern Colorado region, and one of only three museums in the state to complete the full array of AAM’s Continuum of Excellence, which also includes verification of core documents and the Museum Assessment Program.
In short, it’s a big deal; even more so for the report from the accreditation review commission and our visiting site reviewers, who recognized the innovative practices and procedures developed by Linny and our extraordinary corps of associate curators, which are a model for what an academic museum can be.
We’ll be tweeting excerpts from the report over the coming weeks and celebrating the accreditation at our annual fundraiser, Visualize, on Jan. 20, 2018.
I hope you’ll join us and raise a glass to this major milestone.
Lynn Boland
Gregory Allicar Museum of Art, Director
