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FEBRUARY 8, 2023
SECRET WEAPON FOR MUSEUMS
VOL. 104, NO. 6
FEATURED STORIES
Magnolia consultant’s research helps cultural institutions stay relevant By Laura Marie Rivera Contributing writer
From her home in Magnolia, Susie Wilkening is hard at work to save and improve museums everywhere. Wilkening, originally from Georgia, is the founder and principal of Wilkening Consulting. Her small but mighty firm explores the role of museums in American society and attempts to find ways that they can matter more to residents. Each year, Wilkening and her team sets out to explore the country’s thoughts about museums because, according to her website, “Museums desperately need highquality research that explores their role in our society.” Not only that, Wilkening said museums need an expert to sift through all of the research, trends, reports and articles and make sense of it all. To synthesize all of the information and share the relevance with each of the participating organizations, Wilkening devel-
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Photo by Laura Marie Rivera Susie Wilkening lives in Magnolia but focuses her attention on museums and other cultural organizations across the country and their roles in communities and relevance to people. oped a process she calls Knowledge Creation, and even trademarked the name. By gathering the most recent data and filtering it through her own expert lens, she can provide museums with the important data that can help them better engage with their audiences.
To do this, each year, her firm embarks on its Annual Survey of Museum-Goers in partnership with the American Alliance of Museums. This survey is distributed to museums and other organizations like zoos, aquariums, science centers and
botanical gardens and is a major effort to gather data about both frequent museum-goers as well as more casual and sporadic visitors. Wilkening said they typically have about 200 museums participating each year.
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Grassroots group advocating for a ‘people first’ Aurora through Seattle
the city. Coalition welcomes members, throughout “It’s a dividing line for some neighborideas from Queen Anne hoods,” Lang said. “In other neighborhoods,
and urban villages, like in Bitter Lake and Fremont, will only continue to grow. Lang said the E Line, which travels the corridor, is it’s, for lack of a better place, the heart of a the “busiest bus line” in the entire state, and 12 By Jessica Keller | QA&Mag News editor neighborhood.” public schools and more than 30 preschools Its strategy is to bring together the comand daycares are within a half-mile of Aurora. A grassroots organization is looking for munity, public agencies and stakeholders to “There are hundreds of students that cross interested community members to get involved “catalyze transformative change along the Aurora every day, so we need to make those in their mission to advocate for an improved Aurora Avenue corridor” with a vision that: crossings safer and more pleasant for our Aurora Avenue/state Route 99 in Seattle. • Puts people first with an equitable design students and families,” he said. Tom Lang, the Aurora Reimagined Coalifor all people walking, rolling, biking, riding Lang then spoke briefly about a $2,5 miltion’s founder, spoke at the Queen Anne transit and driving; lion study for Aurora being conducted by the Community Council on Feb. 1 and explained • Supports thriving businesses; Seattle Department of Transportation and is ARC’s history and purpose before discussing • Fosters diverse communities; and funded by the Washington Department of projects planned for Aurora Avenue in Seattle. • Mitigates the impacts of climate change Transportation and SDOT. Because Aurora ARC is an all-volunteer, grassroots organiand reduces the urban heat island eff ect, Avenue is part of the larger state highway, zation that formed in 2021 and is made up of ensuring more people can live and work along WSDOT must sign off on any improvements, neighborhood groups, businesses and residents the corridor and travel safely to destinations as well. representing communities along Aurora. Lang beyond. Lang said Seattle Metro is also a big part of said many members are from neighborhood “Everyone moves up and down the corridor this project and is looking at things that can be greenways associations. done to enhance bus system along the corridor, “We’re really grassroots right now and really in some way,” Lang said. “We want to make trying to keep it like that because we think the sure that people are put first and not anything improve station/bus stop access and lighting, and make the E Line faster and safer. most effective thing we can do is gather people else.” “I think this is one of the things that can together and not try to make it too formal of BUSY CORRIDOR really apply to Queen Anne’s segment in an endeavor but instead make it organic as He said a lot of change is taking place or will particular,” he said. much as possible,” Lang said. take place on Aurora, necessitating a transLastly, Seattle Public Utilities and City Members are interested in an improved formation. He said more than 1,000 homes, Light are also interested in making improveAurora because it touches on a large number including multi-story apartment buildings and ments during any construction phases, as well. of Seattle neighborhoods, including Queen Anne, and influences how people move townhouses, are being built or are approved, “So, people are paying attention to this
project,” Lang said. “A lot of different agencies are interested in what’s going to come out of the study, period, and what actually ends up happening.” Lang said, in addition, there is a $50 million fund for an Aurora Licton Urban Village segment of the highway, from 90th to 105th, that was put into the state budget by the Legislature last year. It will fund a number of projects as a demonstration project of what can be done up and down the corridor in different neighborhoods. He said ARC is advocating the $50 million demonstration project include ADA accessible sidewalks and crosswalks; bike opportunities for all ages; transit reliability; resiliency in a changing climate; and belongingness/community connection. “We want to make sure that communities are not divided by the highway, especially if you look at Fremont and Queen Anne, as you are aware, it really does divide the neighborhood,” Lang said. “We want to make sure we can connect the neighborhoods, reconnect them and produce a sense of belongingness in the corridor itself.” The planning for the $50 million demonstration project will not begin until after the entire $2.5 million corridor study is complete.
SEE QACC, PAGE 2
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