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Hill College’s Texas Heritage Museum recognized for excellence by American Alliance of Museums’ Core Documents Verification program

03.27.17

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HILLSBORO, TEXAS---The Hill College Texas Heritage Museum recently passed the American Alliance of Museums’ Core Documents Verification, an important milestone in its ongoing efforts to demonstrate excellence in meeting standards and best practices.

Earning Core Documents Verification means the national professional organization for the museum industry has verified – through a thorough expert review – that the museum has an educational mission as well as policies in place regarding ethics, planning, emergency preparedness and collections stewardship that reflect standard practices of professional museums. These elements were evaluated because they are deemed essential for every institution that identifies itself as a professional member of the museum field.

Of the nation’s nearly 35,000 museums 1,180 have passed the Core Documents Verification. The Texas Heritage Museum is one of 55 museums out of nearly 2,100 museums in Texas to have done so.

The Hill College Texas Heritage Museum recently received notification that it had successfully completed the Core Documents Verification Program, a key milestone in the Continuum of Excellence that is a formal step requiring completion in order to apply for accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums. As part of the verification program, the Texas Heritage Museum was required to revise five core documents related to the operation of the museum including a long-range strategic-plan, a mission statement, a collections-management policy, a code of ethics policy, and a disaster-preparedness/emergency-response plan. This reassures the community that the Texas Heritage Museum has in place the policies and plans essential to museum management, providing staff and governing authority the structure necessary for ethical grounding and accountability needed to make informed, consistent decisions in support of the museum’s mission and sustainability.

“This not only confirms to donors and lenders of art that we operate according to professional standards, but it also supports our role as an academic museum that teaches students about the history and significance of museums and trains students in museum practice,” said John Versluis, Dean of The Texas Heritage Museum. “We are very pleased to have reached this milestone and look forward to seeking accreditation from AAM in the near future.”

Today, 54 years from its infancy, the Texas Heritage Museum is comprised of three divisions: Galleries & Collection, the Historical Research Center and the Hill College Press. The Museum’s mission is to “Explore Texas and Texans during wartime and how those experiences affect us today.” 

For more information please visit http://www.hillcollege.edu/museum/join-and-give.html or https://www.facebook.com/texasheritagemuseum/