GETTING THE PROFESSIONALS

Bringing in experts and scholars in the humanities proved to be essential to carrying out the goals each institution had for the grant outcomes. While both institutions had initially identified a wide range of professional expertise that they could potentially "tap," both needed to narrow the field according to the specific requirements of their projects. In the Friends of Arrow Rock project, experts and scholars were needed for the public programs (the lectures and worship services) and for the supervision of the script writing. Therefore, Friends staff decided to focus on locating one or two historians or presenters of national prominence for a lecture and worship service. Using part of the grant funds in this way would allow the Friends to attract an audience who might be drawn to a high-profile expert. For the remaining professionals needed for their programs, staff could then concentrate on utilizing contacts that had already been established or creating new contacts within local or area organizations, such as Missouri Valley College.

For the Black World History Museum, who wanted to use experts as consultants for the exhibits and as trainers for the interns, securing humanities scholars of national renown was not a great priority. Once the museum staff decided to table its idea of a mock auction, which would have required a professional historical auctioneer, it could narrow its scope of experts to a local level. Involving these local experts would translate, the museum staff hoped, into extended involvement in museum programming and into greater recognition and leverage for the institution within the community. In addition, the museum found that it could allocate more resources to public programming by involving local scholars than it would otherwise be able to if it secured a nationally known expert.

Despite their different approaches to using humanities scholars, both institutions suggest would suggest the following in looking back at their experiences with contracting humanities experts:

1) In securing the necessary professionals, consultants, and humanities scholars, rely on networking as the most important means to contacting and contracting experts and professionals.

By capitalizing on existing relationships with historical societies and individual scholars, both the Friends of Arrow Rock and the Black World History Museum created a classic network in order to renew old contacts and pursue new ones. Even the Friends of Arrow Rock's main scholar, Wallace Gusler, had, as Sue Stubbs explained, "advised the [Friends] some time back." When Friends staff were attempting to convince Mr. Gusler to present a lecture at the festival, they were able to remind him of his previous contact with Arrow Rock. Clyde Ruffin, the professional actor who portrayed the minister in the African-American worship service, was similarly secured through personal contacts--this time through one of the volunteers.

Black World History staff similarly, "knew [the individuals'] expertise" and "simply asked them to help." By choosing scholars whom she already knew to be serious and committed to working with interns, Ms.Conley could count on the professionals' participation over the entire duration of the intern project-several months versus the shorter time period during which the Friends contracted their lecturers.

2) Secure written confirmation from the experts and/or be sure to have back-ups in case your first choice cannot participate.

The Black World History Museum found itself, on several occasions, unable to do a planned activity with its interns because of the loss of a scholar or expert. As Ms. Conley stated in her project evaluation, one of the primary scholars the museum planned on using, Charles Blockson, "was unable to participate." Unfortunately for the museum, the staff "did not learn of his decision until it was really too late to secure the expertise of someone of equal standing." In this instance, and in similar instances experienced by the museum, the staff had to compensate by doing other activities with the student interns. Since the staff members were flexible and ready to assume responsibility in these cases, they were still able to offer students the means, resources, and activities for "increasing their knowledge base."

Friends of Arrow Rock staff had also pursued a back-up historian of national renown in the event that Mr. Gusler would not be willing or able to commit to a lecture. For the Friends, initial difficulty arose not from having Mr. Gusler back out of the project, but from being able to contact him at all. Friends staff reported that it took quite some time to receive return phone calls from Mr. Gusler, who, as a widely known and respected expert on gunsmithing, was quite busy during the period the Friends were trying to contact him. Not having wanted to make all their plans contingent on his participation before they actually secured Mr. Gusler, the Friends staff considered other scholars who might draw an audience comparable in size to the audience Mr. Gusler would. Once they had secured Mr. Gusler, however, the Friends of Arrow Rock was able to call off further searches and focus attention and resources on the scholars they had confirmed.