Tenement Museum in New York Names Its New President
|
Version 0 of 1. Kevin Jennings, a history teacher turned nonprofit leader who is also a former Obama official, has been named the next president of the Tenement Museum in Manhattan. His tenure comes as the museum, which was founded in 1988 on the Lower East Side, recently finished a $20 million capital campaign for a new permanent exhibition, “Under One Roof,” scheduled to open this fall. That campaign was overseen by Morris J. Vogel, who has been the museum’s president since 2008. He had announced in January that he would retire this summer. Under his tenure, the number of visitors increased to about 250,000 per year, from 138,000 when he started. Mr. Jennings said in an interview that he is joining the museum, which is in a tenement formerly occupied by working-class immigrants, at a time when “immigration is a front-page issue.” (Mr. Vogel issued a statement reacting to President Trump’s election in November.) Mr. Jennings said, “Right now, immigrants are being dehumanized and demonized.” “We put the issue in historical and human dimensions,” he said. “You learn the stories of actual families. You walk away at the end seeing these people as human beings.” Still, the museum has hit a “geographic limit” to the number of people it can reach, he continued. It is a small building that can only be seen on a guided tour, and “there are millions and millions of people we’re not touching.” One option could be to broaden the museum’s reach through augmented or virtual reality, Mr. Jennings said. “I think there’s going to be a new capacity for people to visit who have never stepped foot in the building.” Mr. Jennings, a Harvard graduate who taught history for 10 years, was a founder of the nonprofit organization Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, or Glsen, in 1990. He also served as the assistant deputy secretary of education from 2009 to 2011 under President Obama, and for the last five years has been the executive director of the Arcus Foundation. |