RISD Museum Social Equity & Inclusion Work Plan

The RISD Museum is committed to working deliberately, consistently, and compassionately to confront injustice in its many forms. We expect to be challenged and changed by where this collective and responsive work takes us.
 

Update, Spring 2025: 

The RISD Museum’s SEI Work Plan was put down on paper in Fall of 2020 but had been an underlying effort, if not overtly stated, for many years prior. The written plan divides the efforts into three categories:

• Confronting Ourselves Together: actionable goals pertaining to the collection, the staff, and audiences
• From the Inside Out: staff-focused efforts surrounding training, actions, and accountability
• At the Top: making sure the above-stated measures were supported by and reflected in  the museum’s leadership

Confronting Ourselves Together

What we’ve accomplished:

• Developed a working Land Acknowledgment
• Reinstallation of Modern and Contemporary Galleries through a process that invited artists to review and advise on the content, composition, and meanings of curatorial selections
• Database overhaul to more ethically share and narrate identities of artists and makers
• Ongoing social justice programming and implementation of fair compensation policy
• Object repatriation
• Expanded acquisitions efforts to better represent our global collection
   

What’s on the to-do list:

• Renovation and reinstallation of Pendleton House, 1700s-1800s American galleries
• Continued compliance with NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection & Repatriation Act) regulations and dynamically proactive review of Indigenous collections
• Continue building and strengthening diverse and inclusive community relationships
• Prioritization of relationships with BIPOC business partners
• Maintaining robust schedule of internal learning sessions
• Ongoing visitor experience surveying with findings used to be responsive to audience needs

From the Inside Out

What we’ve accomplished:

• Inclusive and equitable expectations and requirements developed for staff surrounding hiring, training, and performance

What’s on the to-do list:

• Ongoing support and expansion of the above as new staff join the museum team
   

At the Top   

What we’ve accomplished:

• Offered greater public transparency of museum’s governing bodies mission and roles (Board of Governors and Fine Arts Committee)
• Sought and added new members to both groups to expand community representation
• Established social equity and inclusion (SEI) working group on the board

What’s on the to-do list:

• Continue to diversify board leadership
• Include regular trainings and dialogues