Bowdoin College Museum of Art

In October, the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) sent word that the Bowdoin College Museum of Art had received subsquent accreditation. The AAM is the nation’s leading museum advocacy organization and, from its headquarters in Washington, D.C., serves to establish national standards and encourage best practices for museums in the United States. The Museum was last accredited prior to the renovation and expansion of the Walker Art Building in 2005-07. Following the Museum’s submission of a self-study report, the AAM sent a two-person visiting committee to Brunswick last summer to tour the Museum and meet its staff and Bowdoin College officials. The committee’s evaluation praised the Museum’s recent renovation and concluded that the Museum and its staff “manifest a common dedication to the highest scholastic and aesthetic standards.” Their report also suggested that the Museum “has shown itself to be a good steward of its resources held in the public trust and committed to the philosophy of continual institutional growth.” Of the more than seventeen thousand museums in the United States, approximately one thousand meet the AAM’s requirements for accreditation.