The Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, SUNY, (NEU) is committed to remaining one of the country’s most respected and important academic museums. Since 1974, the Museum has fostered learning, sparked the creative process, and investigated understandings of the world in which we live through its collections, exhibitions, and education programs. Its 50th anniversary in 2024 afforded the perfect opportunity to plan for the Neuberger’s continuing leadership in the field. The NEU was founded on Roy R. Neuberger’s grand and optimistic philanthropic contribution. We honor his legacy and continue to build on his groundbreaking commitment to visual arts education on a public college campus, to telling new stories and histories through art, and to supporting artists and the making of new art. The NEU inspires learning at all ages, from participants in our campus Children’s Center and students in our regional schools, to Purchase College students, faculty and staff, and our neighbors, near and far.
Creativity-focused engagement with the surrounding community is integral not only to the NEU’s work, but also to Purchase College, SUNY’s unique status as a publicly funded four-year college committed to the arts, and to its diverse student body and regional community. Fifteen percent (15%) of incoming first-year students, mostly from the region, are the first in their families to attend college. And virtually the entire economic and demographic diversity of the United States is represented in the population within an hour’s drive of the College.
Together with our community, partners, and audience, the NEU is part of a unique, rich, and diverse ecosystem that fuels creative thinking, learning, production, and action through direct connection to working artists and the art of our time and the recent past.
Mission, Vision, Values
Mission
What we do
The Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, SUNY, champions those who make art, engage with art, and discover meaning through art.
Vision
Who we are
The Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, SUNY, is a creative community. Its renowned collection, exhibitions, and education programming focus on the art of today and of the recent past to promote learning and engagement for people of all ages and backgrounds.
Values
The Purchase College values that inspire and guide the Museum’s work:
Excellence in museum practice
Delivery of exceptional education experiences
Artistic and scholarly achievement
Personal and professional creativity, inquiry, and expressiveness
Openness to emerging ideas that promote alternatives and variance
Free and expressive speech
Diversity, equity, and inclusion
Respect for individuals’ liberties
Lifelong learning
Meaningful collaboration toward shared goals
Civic engagement
Sustainability
Neuberger Museum of Art Exhibition: The Making of a Museum: 50 Years
Strategic Environment
The Neuberger Museum of Art is an integral part of Purchase College, a four-year public college and the arts campus of the State University of New York (SUNY) system. As such, the NEU is fully aligned with the College’s commitment to serve the region and contribute to the growth and well-being of its constituencies.
Transforming with creative, relevant and meaningful programs
Embracing inclusion for a creative campus
Sustaining a creative future
Expanding the creative community
Those strategic imperatives—with creativity at their center—inspire the NEU’s aspirations, plans, and programming.
The larger context of being part of the SUNY system means that the NEU has a special obligation to New Yorkers. This is reflected in the NEU’s durable and unique financial and strategic support structure. Historically, one-third of the NEU’s funding has derived from the State, which also provides the NEU building and basic operating utilities such as electrical, custodial, and security.
One-third has derived from endowments established with generous foresight by Roy R. Neuberger and further supported by visionary supporters who have continued to grow those funds over the years. Foremost among NEU’s visionary supporters are the Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art, a highly effective fundraising entity and ally.
The Museum’s own efforts supply the final third of funding through government, foundation, individual, and corporate contributions. Recent and recurring funders include the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, Terra Foundation for American Art, E.A. Michelson Philanthropic, and ArtsWestchester.
Neuberger Museum of Art Exhibition: The Making of a Museum: 50 Years
Strategic Priorities
The NEU will fulfill five strategic priorities over the next five years:
Expand and refine formal and informal ways of providing learning, teaching, and scholarship opportunities to our community both on and off campus.
Create teaching and learning opportunities for Purchase faculty and staff
Expand and systematize paid and unpaid teaching, research, and service opportunities for Purchase faculty and staff
Work with the College to create a codified system within Academic Affairs that counts teaching, research, and service at the Museum toward tenure and permanency evaluation
Create paid opportunities for Purchase students at the Museum
Sustain the paid NEU Internship Program for Purchase College undergraduate students
Sustain the paid NEU Research Assistantship program for Purchase College graduate students
Formalize paid student staff positions in the Museum across departments and evidence that embedding in the NEU organizational chart
Participate more robustly in the curricula of the College
Become a voting member of the College’s Educational Policies Committee in order to more formally explore and consent to the ways in which the Museum factors into and creates curricular opportunities
Create a sustainable path for faculty and staff to weave the Museum’s collections and exhibitions into their curricula
Create more opportunities for students to participate in the organization of exhibitions and related programming
Create secure public-facing and non-public-facing object study spaces in the Museum
Create collaborative and codified learning and training opportunities in conjunction with other campus arts producers (e.g., The Performing Arts Center)
In partnership with The Performing Arts Center and Continuing Education, refine our offerings to regional PK-12 schools
Refine the Museum’s PK program with the Purchase College Children’s Center
Refocus the Museum’s K-8 program to hone the content to fewer grades while delivering that content to a wider number of schools
Pilot pre-college programming for students in the region
Create digital pre- and post-visit materials that extend the on-site and virtual visit experiences
Create sustainable programming geared to older adult learners
Pilot new programming for older-adult learners, collaborating with Broadview Senior Living community and our surrounding communities
Lead academic museums nationally in our work around creative aging
Be an essential destination for diverse communities
Be a highly visited regional, national, and global leader in distinctive and engaging visual art experiences by diverse populations.
Extend the Museum’s audience-focused communications
Create a communications and marketing plan that is consistent with the Museum’s Mission, Vision, and Values
Expand or replace the website, continue to build social media presence, and utilize our e-commerce platform for shop and ticket sales
Collaborate with the Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art in the portion of their mission to advance the interests, influence, and prestige of the Museum
Leverage Purchase College resources to amplify our communications and to be of service to the local community, particularly organizations assisting historically disenfranchised communities
Make the onsite visitor experience more welcoming
Work with the College to assure that Museum wayfinding signage is easy to see and current
Employ the Museum’s public art and campus public art projects to improve wayfinding to the Museum
Make the Museum’s exterior more inviting
Make the Museum’s interior more comfortable
Create an accessible virtual public square
Increase physical, virtual, and hybrid access to the Museum’s history, collection, exhibitions, and education programs
Create tools that promote participatory communication and exchange of perspectives particularly by marginalized communities
Listen more closely to, and learn from, what our audiences have to say
Devise multiple, accessible tools for assessment that ask current and prospective audiences about their experiences of the Museum
Conduct listening sessions with communities who have been historically underserved by the Museum including members of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities, people with disabilities, and first-generation students
Support, reveal, and share the creative process
Provide cross-disciplinary opportunities for engagement among creators and the visiting public that expose the myriad ways in which artists imagine and create.
Create an innovative and robust Artist-in-Residency Program
Define a distinctive “residency” with onsite and virtual elements
Create reliable on-campus housing and workspace solutions for the artist-in-residence
Create exhibition opportunities and cross-campus collaborations for the artist-in-residence
Promote art making in public spaces that create civic engagement opportunities
Collaborate with the Committee for Public Art on Campus to produce projects that extend beyond the Museum’s exhibition spaces
Explore viability of relaunching of the NEU’s Biennial Exhibitions of Public Art
Continue to create exhibitions that feature new work and that disrupt canonical approaches
Continue to organize special exhibitions and exhibitions from the collection that reassess and question canonical ways of thinking about art making and the making of art history
Create a discrete series of short-term projects that focus on collection works that emphasize process
Continue to grow the Neuberger’s signature Roy R. Neuberger Prize exhibition series
Create public programs that explore the ideas of our time and interrogate assumptions about what constitutes a work of art
Create programming for the 50th anniversary throughout 2024 that highlights the NEU’s persistent support of creativity
Create opportunities to discuss how art making ties to civic engagement
Activate the Museum’s exceptional collection for research, teaching, and learning
Increase the use and relevance of the collection through strategic acquisitions and fresh scholarship
Consider new approaches to the documentation of the collection
Hire a curator to assess our cataloguing and curatorial practices around the collection of objects from Africa
Establish a Fellowship to assess the cataloguing of the print collection
Continue, and expand on our current, provenance research
Create collection installations that draw on these new approaches, with a particular eye toward de-colonizing practices
Involve students in these projects
Strategically increase collections holdings
Align the Collections Committee’s role and contribution with this Strategic Plan
Ensure the collection reflects a record of the artists the Museum has worked with in the past and going forward
Collaborate with the Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art in the portion of their mission to acquire works of art by grant, gift, purchase, devise, or bequest for exclusive use by the Museum
Diversify what we exhibit from the collection
Dig more deeply into the collection to pull objects that tell fresh and urgent new stories and reflect relevant histories
Ensure all exhibitions are developed with clear consideration for the collection
Deepen and better enable collections research
Create art lab spaces that can be used to support and enhance classroom instruction and scholarly research
Renovate the Museum’s research room and make its contents available to scholars
Make provenance and exhibition literature about the collection available online
Crowdsource information about the collection
Create new paths for sustainability
Balance the multiple financial, physical, and cross-cultural needs of the NEU and customize approaches that support the institution’s health for the long run.
Create and evaluate goals that tie to Purchase College’s Institutional Learning Outcomes. Implement Museum-specific DEIA practices that align with Purchase College’s vision and protocols
Become W.A.G.E. (Working Artists and the Greater Economy)-certified and align our budget and expenses accordingly
Provide DEIA training to staff, volunteers, and the Board of the Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art and ensure that DEIA practices are embedded in our work
Invest in and align the technology, audio, and video equipment needed to meet the demands of in-person, hybrid, and virtual experiences in the NEU’s expansive spaces
Support staff effectiveness and well-being
Give staff as much control as is possible within SUNY guidelines to control how, when, and where they do their work
Make space for open dialogue and anonymity about workplace concerns and issues, supporting institutional critique inherent to academic freedom
Continue to improve the ways in which planning both aligns with and supports fiscal stability
Create and continuously review multiple-year budgets and fundraising goals to assure year-over-year fiscal health
Ensure the NEU continues archiving its history
Moving to philanthropic versus transactional giving methodologies
Collaborate with the Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art in their mission to solicit, receive, and maintain funds for the benefit of the educational and cultural purposes of the NEU and the College
Determine the need for a strategic plan for the Board of the Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art that is tied to the strategic plan of the Neuberger Museum of Art
Reorganize the work of the former development committee and work with the Board of the Friends on pipeline development
Assure succession planning for the Board of the Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art
Work with the Board of the Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art to diversify their ranks
Evaluate and address the NEU’s ecological impact in alignment with Purchase College’s sustainability efforts
Arrange for a NEU energy audit
Explore climate-positive operational activities, such as lowering the use of single-use materials and converting to LED lighting
Institutional Learning Outcomes (ILOs) are the knowledge, skills, abilities, and attitudes that students are expected to develop as a result of their overall experiences throughout their time in college. ILOs are designed to help guide individual departments and disciplines in the development of learning outcomes for their programs, courses and services, and to help shape decision-making processes across the college.
Recognizing the interconnectedness and complexity of all facets of our world, Purchase College commits to sustaining an environment of openness and collaboration in which students develop:
Critical thinking skills, so that they are able to engage in a lifelong building of knowledge through observation, reflection, curiosity, dialogue, and the evaluation and synthesis of information.
Creative and expressive skills, so that they may propose innovative solutions to problems, and innovative manifestations of their own thoughts and feelings.
Articulation skills,so that they are able to communicate their thoughts and choices clearly, carefully, and purposefully, to themselves and to others.
Adeptness in multiple research methodologies and in multiple forms of literacy, so that they may further expand and enrich their appreciation of the complexity of our world, within and beyond college.
A sensitivity to nuance, to traditional and non-traditional knowledges, and to ideas and experiences different from their own, so that they are able to bridge the gap between themselves and others, and between the local and global, while advocating for the importance of diversity in all its manifestations.
A commitment to the planet and to the welfare and equity of all of its peoples, by respecting the sanctity of the environment and by using the United Nations’ 17 interconnected Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a framework for understanding the larger impact of their actions and decisions, so that they may actively engage in building a world that measurably promotes equity, inclusivity, and sustainability.
These Institutional Learning Outcomes have been endorsed by the Purchase College President’s Integrated Planning Council (July 14, 2021)
Neuberger Museum of Art Organizational Chart
Neuberger Museum of Art Advisory Board
The formation of the Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art preceded the opening of the Museum. Founded in 1972 as a separately incorporated 501(c)3 corporation, it serves to support the NEU as part of Purchase College, State University of New York (SUNY) in both advisory and fund-raising capacities, enabling the NEU to steward its collection, produce exhibitions, and create programming for a large and diverse audience.
The Friends organization was modeled on the Friends of the Whitney Museum of American Art, a support group started by Roy Neuberger, the first trustee not a member of the Whitney family. With the founding of the Neuberger Museum, he used that experience to create a new Friends with the same dual missions of advisory and financial support. The Friends serve as consultants to the Director and as partners to the NEU development staff in publicizing exhibitions, openings and educational events and raising money for those purposes.
The unique relationship between the Friends, the NEU and, by extension, Purchase College dictates that any money made by the Friends from events and programs are kept in the Friends’ accounts but is spent only in support of the NEU. In accordance with the NEU’s Collection Management Policy, any art in the Friends Collection—that is, art either donated to the Friends or bought by the Friends—is for the exclusive use of the NEU and, by agreement, on permanent extended loan to the NEU which has control over that art and treats it the same way as art in the Permanent Collection. Similarly, how this art is acquired is subject to the protocols of that Policy. And, of course, that which belongs to the NEU belongs to Purchase College and, thus, to the State of New York.
Today, the Friends organization, while following the same mission it had at its founding, is working to embrace both the expanding opportunities and increasing challenges of a more complex world. It supports the NEU’s ongoing programs of educational outreach to underserved communities in the area, as well as sponsoring outreach efforts of its own. Additionally, the Friends and the NEU are committed to expanding diversity and inclusion throughout both organizations. The Friends, today, is an active and welcoming group of art lovers working together in support of a vibrant and evolving institution.
About the Workplan
The Strategic Plan Workplan is a guide for accomplishing the goals of the Plan between its beginning in July 2024 and its completion at the end of June 2029.
The workplan is intended to be a living document and will be developed within the context of the often-changing landscape of timeline, staffing, and resources by those involved in the execution of the plan, inclusive of Neuberger staff, volunteers, and advisory board along with Purchase College students, faculty, and staff.
The workplan will evolve over time, account for tasks, assign responsibilities to individuals, set due dates, and assess resources.
The first step in developing the workplan will be to determine the tasks required to accomplish the goals as well as the resources needed to accomplish the tasks. The second step in developing the workplan will be to assign each task and timeline the work.
The workplan will be reviewed routinely and modified as needed.
art at the heart of Purchase College, SUNY 735 Anderson Hill Road Purchase, NY 10577-1400 purchase.edu/neuberger | neuberger.org
