Northwestern Guides Corporate Executive to Her ‘True North’
How the Museum Studies certificate program led to Sandra James’ museum director role
Sandra K. James, was the head of global issues management and crisis communications at the chemical and seed company Corteva Agriscience when the COVID pandemic convinced her it was time for a career switch. “Throughout my career in science companies, I had always used board service, consulting and special projects to exercise my passion for art," she said. She had previously led initiatives to elevate art institutions in her area and was interested in exploring the field. Some online research let Sandra to Northwestern SPS’s online Museum Studies certificate program which she found attractive due to Chicagoland's deep portfolio of respected museums and art institutions.
In 2022, after receiving her certificate, Sandra joined the Biggs Museum of American Art in Dover, Delaware, where, as deputy director, she oversees external relations, development and membership.
From the corporate world to the art world
Growing up with a hobbyist painter father and a mother who was a longtime volunteer at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Sandra cultivated an appreciation for art early in life. Her educational path, in the meantime, took her into corporate external affairs, where she was excited to join the field with DuPont Merck in the late '90s as it developed a blockbuster treatment for HIV and AIDS.
Sandra advanced her career with roles at Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Astra-Zenecaand DuPont, based in Delaware. The pandemic was an especially challenging time in global companies, however. While working as head of issues and crisis management for a multinational company, she says, "It felt like the crisis that would not end." She decided it was time to do something different and leverage her 20 years of experience in the corporate world to follow her passion.
In the program, Sandra discovered new ways to apply her corporate experience to the museum world. Debra Kerr, president and CEO of Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art and former executive vice president of the Shedd Aquarium, covered strategic planning during her Successful Museum Management course, something Sandra had experience with from the corporate world, but says "it was interesting to look at how strategic planning was done within a museum." In Caroline Goldthorpe's Learning in Museums class, Sandra says she gained a better understanding of education in museums and how to engage with directors of education more effectively, an area that Sandra says they are currently working on at the Biggs. “The courses that I took definitely provided a foundation for me in museum management.”
In addition to the coursework, Sandra says engaging with her classmates was extremely valuable. “All of them were at museums, and I was able to network with folks from institutions like Cooper Hewitt," she says, particularly applicable when one of the courses involved a real-life group hands-on education planning project for the New York museum. "Having the exposure to people who were working day to day in the field was helpful.”
The Successful Museum Management course changed Sandra’s life. “There was an early assignment to go and visit a regional museum to which you had never been.” She chose the Biggs, about an hour south of her home in Wilmington, which houses an exceptional collection of regional 17th-century to present-day fine and decorative arts. She followed along on a tour and was captivated by the museum's size, scope, and collection. A meeting with the curator led to a meeting with the executive director and a discussion about her experience. “A few months later that they reached out to me and I joined the museum.”
Sandra says that her time probing her “incredibly approachable” professors during her time in the SPS program helped her with the informational interviewing skills that helped land her the job at the Biggs. “That was a huge help to me because you could ask direct questions about the museums where they had worked in their career and their experience, utilizing the faculty and my fellow students. You can learn more about what they do and the various museum departments. That was amazingly helpful in my career transition.”
An office with a beautiful view
Ask Sandra what's special about the Biggs collection, and she is more than happy to discuss its origins and collection, including paintings, furnishings, and decorative arts. She says that illustration is special to the state of Delaware, as some of the most famous American illustrators trained with Howard Pyle in Wilmington. "So we have the Wyeths, Schoonovers, really gorgeous examples of American illustration.” In the Impressionist gallery, she says a favorite is a painting by Childe Hassam of an island in Maine and a Schofield landscape painting set in Bucks County, although it’s hard to pick just one preferred painting. "Just recently, I was in a different gallery in the museum, and I fell in love with this Reynolds Beal oil painting of the interior of William Merritt Chase's 10th Street Gallery in New York. It's just a gorgeous oil painting, so rich, and it is an interior that just draws you into this room with beautiful art and objects.”
Spending time with fine art might seem like a far cry from corporate external relations for biopharma, chemicals and agriculture, but the path has been natural. When Sandra first joined the museum, she was tasked with developing a program around a Wyeth exhibition from the Bank of America collection. “I brought in three curators of corporate art collections for a panel discussion on what a corporate collection is and why corporations collect art. I moderated the panel, and it was a terrific evening. It was sold out.”
Looking back, Sandra is grateful for her time in the corporate world working with scientists and sees how it benefits her in the art world. “I think there's room in society for both science and art, and I think there's a lot of parallels between promoting and publicizing the work of scientists and that of artists.” She says to everyone else considering a similar career shift, "I would strongly suggest to anybody trying to make this transition to talk to as many people as you can and figure out what makes you intrigued and excited.”
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