Call for Proposals

Trails to the Future: Change & Resilience

2024 Mountain-Plains Museum Association Annual Conference

Proposal Submission Deadline - 26 January 2024

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Thank you for being a part of the Mountain-Plains Museum Association! Whether you’re a seasoned professional or a newly minted graduate your desire to share, learn, and grow shapes our association and enriches our communities. Right now we’re gearing up for MPMA to visit Bismarck, North Dakota in 2024. Next year’s annual conference is scheduled for 6-8 October 2024. We hope that you will join us, but also lend your professional expertise and curiosity by hosting a conference session or workshop. 

Our call for session and workshop proposals is open now through 26 January 2024. Are you doing something interesting or exciting at your institution? Or tackling a program that might be helpful to others? We’d love to hear about it! Conference sessions are typically 75 minutes and can be hosted by individuals or small groups as lectures, panel discussions, roundtables, or something new. Workshops provide hand-on learning for half-day or full-day sessions. They can provide attendees with new tools and techniques or a refresher to rehone skills. Sessions and workshops are tagged with 1-3 professional tracks. These tracks are administration, archives/libraries, audience research, collections, community engagement, development/fundraising, DEAI, education, emerging museum professionals, exhibits, facilities/security, indigenous, interpretation, retail, small museums, technology, visitor services, volunteers, marketing, and membership.

So let’s gear up for Bismarck and start thinking about what you can bring to the conference. To get you started we’ve put together examples of what conference sessions and workshops look like. They are available below. We can also help you find co-presenters! Also don’t forget about the MPMA scholarship program if you need financial help coming to Bismarck. Scholarships are available for emerging and mid-career professionals.

When you’re ready, use the following form to submit your session or workshop proposal. And if you need help or have questions, please reach out.

Very Respectfully,

John Woodward
Program Committee Chair
Director
WYMD Museums
Casper, WY
John.Woodward@wyo.gov

Micah Huyser
Program Committee Vice Chair
Director
Nebraska Prairie Museum
Holdredge, NE
Director@nebraskaprairiemuseum.org