We’re raising funds to send a cohort of disabled museum educators to the Association of Science and Technology Centers Conference (ASTC) in San Francisco this September.

Our team is leading a workshop on rethinking accessibility in museum spaces and will be sharing research, lived experience, and strategies for redesigning museums to better serve disabled children and the educators who work with them. This workshop stems from research a cohort of disabled museum educators has been leading for the past year (Morris and Berger 2024). This research seeks to understand the systemic and institutional barriers for disabled folks working at and visiting museums.

Our presenters for this workshop:

Normally, Alexandra Morris and I (Wade Berger) would cover travel costs for our team through research funding. But this year, Wade was furloughed due to cancelled National Science Foundation grants supporting education and DEI research and Alexandra’s fixed term contract was not renewed due to sector wide hiring freezes and higher-education job cuts in the UK. We no longer have access to our typical funding options, though we previously submitted grants and foundational giving to support this work. This funding will not come in time (or at all) to support our workshop at ASTC. We’re still moving the work forward, and this workshop at ASTC is an important step in sharing our research, connecting with other disabled museum and science center educators, and securing future funding and support for our ongoing work.

We are asking for help to cover the costs of our team to lead this workshop: ASTC registration, travel, accommodations, and accessibility support. ASTC is a particularly expensive conference because it is extensive, immersive, and provides expansive professional development opportunities for those who present and attend. Also, funding for accessible participation and travel to conferences is always challenging. Attending a conference as a disabled person comes with extra costs and logistics including insurance, accommodations, and particular travel arrangement. While we are working with ASTC to support our team's participation in the conference, we anticipate that they will not have funding to support the individual travel needs of our presentation group.

Funds raised will go toward covering travel costs for the workshop presenters:

Your support helps make sure disabled professionals are present, leading, and shaping the future of museum access and museum work as a whole. Thanks for contributing or sharing.