Fairfield University Art Museum Receives National Accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums

The Fairfield University Art Museum has achieved accreditation by the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), the highest national recognition afforded to American museums. Accreditation signifies excellence to the museum community, to governments, funders, outside agencies, and to the museum-going public.

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 50 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.

“It is so exciting to have all of the hard work that the Museum staff has invested in this process—validated in this way. We are so proud to now be an accredited museum, and to have been recognized for all that we have accomplished since 2010 when the Museum was founded,” said Carey Mack Weber, the Frank and Clara
Meditz executive director of the Fairfield University Art Museum. “Among the achievements I am most proud of are having grown and diversified the permanent collection—which now numbers over 2,500 objects—making our programs accessible to the broadest possible audiences through livestreaming, recording and archiving, and making all of our exhibition materials available bilingually in Spanish.”

Of the nation’s estimated 33,000 museums, over 1,080 are currently accredited. Fairfield University Art Museum is one of only 21 museums accredited in Connecticut, and one of only 12 accredited art museums in the state. Only 11% of museums in New England are accredited, only 16% of the Academic Art Museums in the country are accredited, only 15% of the museums with staffs the size of Fairfield’s Art Museum have achieved this honor, and only one other Jesuit University has an accredited museum.

The accreditation commissioner who shared the news with the Museum, Lisa Tremper Hanover, said that the commission “concurred that in a relatively short amount of time, you [the Museum] have met and exceeded standards and are a wonderful example of an academic museum that serves a vital town and gown
purpose; your work with students and faculty is admirable.”

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 Past President and CEO. “Accreditation is clearly a significant achievement, of which both the institutions and the communities they serve can be extremely proud.”

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