Author: Richard McCoy

2014 AIC Great Debate: Rookies and Veterans

Kristen, Laura, and Richard listen on.
Kristen, Laura, and Richard take fun seriously.

Are you ready for San Francisco and all that goes with the AIC Annual Meeting?
The one thing I know I am ready for is the 2014 AIC Great Debate (4:00 – 6:00 pm on Saturday, May 31). And this one is going to be bigger and better than ever! Again, I will have my crew, Kristen Adsit and Laura Kubick on hand to help emcee the event. And again there will be a cash bar to keep things running smoothly. Will I be the only one wearing a bow tie? We’ll just have to see on that one.
But this time around I wanted to shake it up a little and have a topic debated by teams of “Rookies” (current graduate students) and another topic debated by teams of “Veterans” (folks that have been in the field for many years). With the added twist that rookies got to choose the debate topic in which the veterans have to debate, and vice versa. I thought this would be a good way to see the topics that each side wanted to hear about from the other.
While the old fogies, er veterans, quickly came up with their topic for the rookies to debate, it took the rookies a lot longer to come up with a solid topic for the veterans. Maybe the rookies were nervous, busy with graduate school, or maybe they wanted to take their time and come up with a topic that would make the veterans sweat a bit. In any case, this is whole thing is meant to show that conservators are clever enough to not take themselves so seriously, and that we can see both sides of any topic.
I created the Great Debate to be a fun, intellectual exercise and a place where debaters are challenged to debate from a position that they may not represent, or agree with (it’s not really a place to represent your institution, company, or any kind of official view point). And remember, a team wins the Debate by convincing you, the folks in the audience, to change your mind about the topic.
2013 AIC Great Debate
2013 AIC Great Debate

The rookies will be the first to debate and then the veterans will take the stage for the main event. So without further ado, here are the topics, teams, and sides:

Rookies Debate Topic:

“The most important aspect of conservation practice is no longer the treatment of cultural property.”

Rookies Team 1: Affirmative

    • Marie-Lou Beauchamp
    • Jena Hirschbein
    • Alexandra Nichols

Rookies Team 2: Negative

    • Tessa Gadomski
    • Tom McClintock
    • Kari Rayner

Veterans Debate Topic:

“AIC is successfully promoting the advancement of recently-graduated conservators in today’s work force.”

Veterans Team 1: Affirmative

    • John Burke
    • Thomas Edmondson
    • Paul Himmelstein

Veterans Team 2: Negative

    • Margaret Ellis
    • Rick Kerschner
    • Joyce Hill Stoner

If you want some background info on the Great Debate, here are links to the articles I wrote for the past two Debates in this blog: 2013 Great Debate, 2012 Great Debate.
See you San Francisco!

The 2013 AIC Great Debate

At the 2012 AIC Annual Meeting we hosted the first ever AIC Great Debate. By all accounts, it was a rousing success. While last year’s debate was good, this year we’re hoping to make it better.
The 2013 Great Debate will take place on Saturday, June 1 from 4:00 to 5:00 pm as the final session in the General Session.  Now not only will  everyone have the opportunity to attend, but you’ll have a good reason to stay to the very end of the Annual Meeting!  And, as the ultimate way to promote dialogue, camaraderie, and, well, fun, we will have a cash bar in the room. Finally, I’m working on walk up music for the teams: hint all of the musicians were born in Indiana.
But, before I list this year’s debate topics and participants, I want to make a very important disclaimer: I created the AIC Great Debate as an intellectual exercise to demonstrate that conservators are clever enough to see a tough topic from both sides and discuss it openly.
With this in mind, in many cases I have personally invited participants to debate from a position that is contrary to their personal beliefs. This not only adds a fun twist it proves the point that the Debate is not meant to provide a forum so we can prove one side is right, but rather to engage in a public dialogue to surface all of this issues around difficult topics. And though I’m listing participant’s institutional affiliations (so you’ll get a chance to know them better), in no way am I suggesting that the participants are representing an institutional position in the Debate.
TOPIC 1:

The greatest act of preservation for inherently fragile or fugitive cultural property is exhibition, even if the duration goes far beyond what is currently recommended.

Affirmative Team

2012 Great Debate
2012 Great Debate
    • Rosa Lowinger (Rosa Lowinger & Associates)
    • Patty Miller (2 Arts Conservation)
    • Jodie Utter (Amon Carter Museum of American Art)

Negative Team

    • John Campbell (Campbell Contemporary Sculpture Conservation)
    • Fletcher Durant (New York Public Library)
    • Jessica Ford (University of Delaware Art Conservation Graduate School)

TOPIC 2:

While volunteers used on preservation projects often allow us to accomplish more work, they undermine our capacity to regularly employ conservation and collections care professionals.

Affirmative Team

    • Rose Cull (Kress Fellow in Sculpture Conservation at Tate)
    • Kelly Keegan (Art Institute of Chicago)
    • Dawn Walus (Boston Athenaeum)

Negative Team

    • Will Hoffman (Mariners Museum)
    • Michele Marincola (Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Arts/Metropolitan Museum)
    • Beverly Perkins (Buffalo Bill Center of the West)

Like last year, I’d like to ask you for help to make the AIC Great Debate successful.  We need you!  We need you in the audience to be lively, interested, engaged, and fun.  And I don’t mean just to cheer on your favorite conservator or team; we need you to participate in the Great Debate at AIC!

There will be a significant amount of time in which the audience will get to ask each team questions to which they have to respond.
And, finally, we need you to decide who wins the debate.  The winning team for each topic will be the one who sways the most opinions in the audience.
If you’re interested in reading about how the AIC Great Debate went last year, there are reviews on this blog of each debate topic.
2012 TOPIC #1:  Publishing accurate and complete “how-to guides” for conservation and restoration treatments online is the best way for us to care for cultural heritage in the 21st century. Read the review here.
2012 TOPIC #2: Having conservators perform treatments in the gallery is the most successful way to generate funding for museums and raise awareness about the profession. Read the review here.

The 2012 Great Debate at AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting (Updated)

I’ve had countless great debates with conservators at AIC, but I think they’ve usually happened outside in the hallway, over coffee, dinner, or drinks.

This is year that all changes.  

For the first time ever, at the 2012 Annual Meeting in Albuquerque I’ll be moderating the Great Debate at AIC.  This is a modified Oxford-Style Debate that will feature two tough topics that will be debated by the best and brightest minds in the field of conversation today.  (I got the idea from seeing it at the Annual Meeting for Museum Computer Network; you can watch one of those debates here.)

An Update & Important Note: I have placed debaters on one side or the other arbitrarily!  The side they are arguing from may not actually be the side they truly believe. This was done in an attempt to surface the best argument from both sides.

So, without further ado, here are the topics and the teams set to do battle:

First Statement: Publishing accurate and complete “how-to guides” for conservation and restoration treatments online is the best way for us to care for cultural heritage in the 21st century.

Affirmative Team

  • Karen Pavelka
  • Paul Messier 
  • Mary Striegel

Negative Team

  • Scott Carrlee 
  • Victoria Montana Ryan 
  • Matt Skopek 

Second Statement: Having conservators perform treatments in the gallery is the most successful way to generate funding for museums and raise awareness about the profession.

Affirmative Team

  • Vanessa Muros 
  • Kristen Adsit 
  • Camille Myers Breeze

Negative Team

  • Suzanne Davis 
  • Hugh Shockey 
  • Sharra Grow 

To make the debate successful we’ll need lots of help from a highly engaged audience.  And I don’t mean just to cheer on your favorite team, we need you to participate in the Great Debate at AIC!

There will be a significant amount of time in the debate in which members of the audience will get to ask each team questions to which they  have to respond.  Plus, the audience will decide who wins the debate.

The goal of the Great Debate is to create a new forum at the Annual Meeting that encourages meaningful discussions and provides conservators the opportunity to demonstrate their capacity to address challenging issues directly, openly, and in a fun way.

So be sure to come out on Friday the 11th  from 2:00 to 3:30 pm to see your colleague do battle on stage in front of a lively audience.  I know I’m bias, but this is going to be the most fun you’ll have at the Annual Meeting this year!