Hallie Ford keeps head up in the face of short-staffing issues

A student in Hallie Ford finds a piece that speaks to them. Graphic by Alyssa Diggdon.

The Hallie Ford Museum of Art, at its peak, has sustained around six full-time and six part-time employees. Each of these dozen individuals served a distinct purpose and was an integral part of the community, helping to smoothly operate the museum through preservation efforts, exhibits and daily operations. Today’s staff, however, has taken quite the plunge in number, now sustaining two full-time and four part-time employees. Short-staffed, the museum can still run but not without new problems. 

Some of these positions were cut alongside the museum’s hours after COVID-19 hit, as their hours of operation were reduced from a seven-hour day to just five. COVID, however, was not the main cause of the museum’s staffing issue. A lack of funding and a perceived lack of necessity of these individual positions for the museum provided the rest of the blow, according to John Olbrantz, the director of the Hallie Ford Museum of Art. The cut positions that remain unfilled include the education curator and the public relations and membership manager. Other positions, such as the secretary, have shifted to part-time. 

The education curator is in charge of outreach to K-12 schools in the greater Salem-Keizer area and classes at the university. Field trips for the latter were also often organized by this position, as well as the arrangement and training of a retinue of professors and art docents to guide these tours. The docent program, which consisted of volunteers from local schools that teach art to the students, had a further outreach than just the school districts. These volunteers used to be available weekly on Tuesdays for all visitors to give free guided tours of the museum. Since the education curator position has been left vacant, there have been no weekly tours. In fact, there are no guided tours of the galleries, and there has been a decline in tours given by professors, as the education curator is no longer providing training to those interested in leading tours of the building. 

When it comes to the duties of the public relations and membership manager, the university has deemed the position non-essential, leaving the work to be divided amongst the two full-time staff members as well as a consultant for the university's office of communications. Olbrantz commented on these added responsibilities— managing the social media platforms and secretarial work — to his job as well as Jonathan Bucci’s job as the curator of collections and exhibitions, saying that even with all of these added pressures, “[He doesn’t] think [they] have missed a beat, thank goodness.” 

The piling of responsibilities once filled by full- or part-time employees has been weighing heavily not only on remaining staff members but also on community members when considering the full potential of the museum itself. Ann Nicgorski, a current professor of art history and archaeology at Willamette, admitted, “[The museum] has a lot of artworks that students could really benefit from seeing that are in the basement, and there just isn't enough staff to do everything that it takes to get things out and to put something on display.” 

Classes that could benefit from these exhibits, such as ones that teach about items that are in the collection, are often not getting the opportunity to view these objects. Nicgorski added, “It makes a big difference to see something in person [rather] than to see it on a screen.” However, without the Education Curator to hold workshops to teach professors on campus how to give their own tours or the docents to lead Tuesday tours, there is a missed opportunity for classes to view specific items that pertain to their taught subjects and get an in-depth perspective on the museum in general. 

In lieu of these tours and opportunities, there remains a self-guided tour on the website as well as monthly gallery talks — often with the artist of the exhibit — giving attendees a deeper insight into the story behind the gallery.