Cultural Connections Home

Upcoming Program

Please join us for our upcoming program, date in June 2008 and location to be determined, on the subject of Audience Development. Check back here for updates.

About Us

Cultural Connections meeting attendees toured the SF Recycling and Disposal, Inc., sculpture garden during a program about Artists-in-Residence programs.

Cultural Connections is a consortium of educators, designers, evaluators, and consultants representing museums and other cultural institutions in Northern California, who meet regularly in order to exchange ideas and common concerns, share resources, and inspire creativity and action in the museum field. Its purpose is to provide avenues for communication and collaboration among those concerned with education and interpretation in museums.

The Cultural Connections board is made up of museum professionals in both the non-profit and for-profit sectors, as well as independent consultants.

Each board member participates in one of three committees:

Programs committee organizes at least five professional development events each year
Membership committee recruits, retains, and communicates with the CC membership
Executive committee (made up of the president, vice president, treasurer, and secretary) oversees the business of the organization.

All Cultural Connections members are invited to actively participate as members of the Membership and Programs committees. In addition, we annually recruit new board members in the Fall. If you are a member in good standing and wish to be considered for a committee or board position with Cultural Connections, please indicate this interest to a board member at a meeting or contact us by email at info@cultural-connections.org.

History of Cultural Connections

The organization was established in 1977 as Museums Associated with Public Schools (MAPS), a consortium of 12 San Francisco museums working to enhance education in the San Francisco Unified School District. Between 1977 and 1980, the group developed a museum-based curriculum for 4th graders and promoted museum attendance by 4-12 grade students.

In 1981, MAPS became Cultural Connections and, among other programs, began to offer open meetings to museum educators and teachers for the exchange of resources and ideas. The late 1980s saw the introduction of regular bi-monthly programs for educators, and Cultural Connections was incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 1990.

Today, Cultural Connections is governed by a volunteer board of museum professionals from throughout the Bay Area. As the field of museum education has become more complex and integrated with other museum fields, our programs deal with a broader range of topics, such as evaluation, exhibit design, and professional development.

Contact Information

Electronic mail
	Our email address is info@cultural-connections.org Webmaster: webmaster@cultural-connections.org