BILL HOLM CENTER PROGRAM ASSISTANT (75% FTE)

As a UW employee, you have a unique opportunity to change lives on our campuses, in our state and around the world. UW employees offer their boundless energy, creative problem solving skills and dedication to build stronger minds and a healthier world.

UW faculty and staff also enjoy outstanding benefits, professional growth opportunities and unique resources in an environment noted for diversity, intellectual excitement, artistic pursuits and natural beauty.

About the Burke Museum:
The Burke Museum cares for and shares natural and cultural collections so all people can learn, be inspired, generate knowledge, feel joy, and heal. The Burke was founded in 1885 by the Young Naturalists, a group of curious teenagers inspired by seeing Seattle transform before their eyes. For 135 years, the museum has built upon this legacy, collecting objects that help us understand how the Northwest has grown and changed.

Totaling over 16 million objects, the Burke’s collections help sustain cultural traditions, enable groundbreaking scientific research, and advance timely conversations that matter to us all. The collections are records of our past and investments in our future. The Museum’s curators—faculty members at the University of Washington—grow collections in the anticipation of change: continued disruption to ecosystems, shifting cultural landscapes and advances in technology we have yet to imagine. Our work is collaborative; we partner with institutions, students, communities and people around the world to understand our past and create positive change in the future.

As both a University and State museum, the Burke Museum is a public resource committed to building an inclusive environment that welcomes and values all people. We recognize that our history, from the founding to the present day, is built upon a colonial model of museums that consistently privileged collections, preservation, and research over cultural autonomy and community survival.

The Burke is committed to decolonization as a key institutional priority, and across the museum, we now work as facilitators and stewards, not as gatekeepers and sole authorities, in order to honor our mandate to truly be a museum for all.

Summary:
In October 2019, the Burke opened a new building turning the work of a museum “inside-out” with visible labs, workrooms, collections storage, and an artist studio.  Removing these barriers enables us to make the collections and work that happens here daily accessible to everyone. Every visit to the New Burke is different because every day brings new work. And because we’re doing this work right out in the open, everyone can experience it and join in.

Job Summary
The Assistant Program Specialist for the Bill Holm Center for the Study of Northwest Native Art at the Burke Museum assists BHC Program Specialist with all planning and implementation for Bill Holm Center programming including visiting researchers, onsite artist workshops, demonstrations in the artist studio, and outreach travel to artists’ gatherings in the local region. This includes establishing and maintaining relationships with individuals, artists, tribal governments and arts organizations, coordinating research and tribal visits, conducting tours, arranging for collections visits, and assisting researchers.

This position is dependent on grant funding through August 2023.

RESPONSIBILITIES:
Responsibilities include but are not limited to: