Central City Museum The recently completed new building to house the exhibits and staff of the Central City Museum was located adjacent to the campus of a private university. The new building was uniformly interested and cager to help. The major questions pertained to the future mission and goals of the museum. Some excerpts from the interviews are listed here: A major donor: I think the muscum should be a major controversial exhibit, such as on Islamic art, and exhibits that appeal to Hispanics and African Americans. This approach would entail bringing in traveling exhibitions from major museums, which would save the administrative costs and overhead of producing our own exhibits. to make the muscum popular on campus or in the community will waste our limited resources. Our Ph.D. graduates will be sought after by art history departments throughout the country. The reason that you have been given this information from the interviews is that you have been invited to interview for the position of museum director. The previous director retired with the understanding that a new director would be hired upon the completion of fund- raising for and construction of the new building. You are thinking about what you would do if you took the job. Head of the art history department: The key thing is that the museum will not have the artistic resources or the financial resources to serve the community at large. We have a wonderful opportunity to integrate the museum with the academic faculty and make it a teaching institution. It can be a major resource for both undergraduate and graduate students in art eấucation and art history. We can also work with engineering students, architecture students, and liberal arts students. This is a unique opportunity that will distinguish our art history department's teaching mission from others in the country. A faculty member in the art history department: The best use of the museum's relationship with the university is to concentrate on training Ph.D.-level students in art history and to support scholarly rescarch. I strongly urge the museum to focus on graduate education, which would increase the stature of the university nationally. Graduate students would be involved in the design of exbibits that would fit their rescarch. Trying Questions 1. What goal or mission for the Central City Museum do you personally prefer? As director, would you try to implement your preferred direction? Explain. 2. How would you resolve the underlying conflicts among key stakcholders about museum direction and goals? What actions would you take? 3. Review the "Manager's Shoptalk," carlier in the chapter. Do you think that building a coalition and working out stakeholder differences in goal preferences is an important part of a manager's job? Why or why not?