The Museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The Museum opens at 11 a.m. on Saturday, May 31, and Sunday, June 1. Plan Your Visit
The Museum of Us (formerly the San Diego Museum of Man) is located on the unceded ancestral homelands of the Kumeyaay Nation in what is now known as Balboa Park. Our mission is inspiring human connections by exploring the human experience—in all of its beauty and its messiness. With our community’s guidance, we’ve transformed an old-school anthropology museum with a legacy of colonial and racist harm into a human-centered museum that builds understanding, empathy, and belonging, and—in turn—the capacity to effectuate positive change. We’re a place for everyone, but especially for those who haven’t been able to tell their own stories in mainstream museums. We’re also a place for the new and future generations of museum-goers, who will continue to expect more from their cultural institutions. The driving force behind our work is developing better and better practices in what a decolonial and anti-racist museum can look like and then creating a ripple effect in the museum field (and beyond). Four interrelated themes loom large for us: Identity, Home, Wellness, and Justice. Every one of our projects/initiatives begins with an examination of whether (and, if so, how) the work is oriented around and informed by our decolonial and anti-racist commitments.
The Museum of Us strives to intentionally incorporate a decolonial ethos into everything it does. For this reason, the (Associate – Senior) Director of Decolonizing Initiatives (DI Director) is an interdepartmental position that supports every aspect of the Museum’s work. The DI Director is a highly collaborative and trusted advisor who provides wise-counsel to our entire leadership team. The DI Director also provides support to each and every team/team member at the Museum, as needed, relative to our decolonial work, including serving as a valued thought-partner with our CEO. This support goes both ways in that the leadership team, including our CEO, recognizes the heavy emotional labor required from the DI Director and the need to make a wide variety of community care resources available to them.
From a practical perspective, the DI Director is the primary team member responsible for implementing our Decolonizing Initiatives Strategic Action Plan, which serves as the foundation for our decolonial work and operationalizes our decolonizing initiatives. In doing so, the DI Director partners with a wide variety of internal and external stakeholders. These include, but are not limited to, the Indigenous and other BIPOC communities with whom we closely work, our community-centered consultants, our colleagues (both in Balboa Park and throughout the museum field), and our board of trustees. The DI Director also focuses on extensive trust/relationship-building with Indigenous and other BIPOC communities as well as our engagement with a wide variety of external stakeholders who want to learn more about our decolonial work. Consistent with our decolonial values, the DI Director is an active participant in helping us define how the role itself can best serve our museum, our community and our field (including the best allocation of their time) in intentional and purpose-driven ways.
The DI Director is a full-time, salaried position that sits on the leadership team. The position reports to our Executive Director. They do not supervise any other team members. There is a meaningful line item in the annual budget that supports the DI Director’s work, giving them flexibility to allocate monies as they deem appropriate in partnership with other members of the leadership team. The DI Director has extensive lived and/or professional experience with Indigenous communities and works in a highly collaborative/supportive manner. Due to the nature of the role, the DI Director works on-site three days per week, on average. Depending on experience/readiness, the role may be at the level of Associate DI Director, DI Director, or Senior DI Director, allowing more emerging professionals room for growth over time. We hope to make an offer to the right candidate by late August 2023, with an anticipated start date of early October 2023, if possible.
To apply for the Decolonizing Initiatives Director position, please email your resume and a one-page letter specifically addressing why your lived/professional experience, skill sets and strengths are a good fit with the position responsibilities, along with why you are passionate about this opportunity, our work, and the Museum of Us, to decolonizing@museumofus.org. Please use the subject title “Decolonizing Initiatives Director Position.”
Applications for this position will be accepted until 12:00 a.m., midnight PDT, on Friday, July 28, 2023.
The Museum of Us recognizes that it sits on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Kumeyaay Nation. The Museum extends its respect and gratitude to the Kumeyaay peoples who have lived here for millennia.
The Museum is open daily, Monday through Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
1350 El Prado, San Diego, CA 92101