SCA & WFHM at SEMC

ZSR Library Special Collections & Archives and Wake Forest Historical Museum staff joined other museum professionals at the 2026 Southeastern Museums Conference, held September 27-30 in Winston-Salem, NC. This year’s gathering, themed Forged in Culture and Focused on the Future, embraced the rich artistic and cultural traditions that define both Winston-Salem and the greater Southeast.

As museums and cultural institutions look forward, the conference invited us to reflect on our shared heritage while exploring new ways to evolve with intention, creativity, and resilience.

The goals of this conference were to:

Honor the cultural legacies that define our communities;
Strengthen connections between art, history, and innovation; and
Envision the future of museums as inclusive, adaptive spaces that lead with intention.

SEMC’s evening events were wonderful opportunities to explore local sites and mingle with other museum professionals. This year, these receptions took place at Körner’s Folly, Reynolda House Museum, and Kaleideum respectively. At Körner’s Folly, a 19th-century Victorian manor turned house museum, we explored the home’s eccentric layout with 22 unique rooms. Most of us at the museum had already visited the Reynolda House Museum on Wake Forest University’s campus, but it was nice to explore the space with familiar and new faces. The conference’s final reception at Kaleideum allowed us to experience Winston-Salem’s revamped children’s museum after-hours.

Alayna @ SEMC

This was my first time attending SEMC, and I had a fantastic experience! Whether it was having coffee with the Collections Manager at Space Center Houston and the Curator at Cape Canaveral Space Force Museum, or exploring Reynolda House and Kaleideum with the team at the Wake Forest Historical Museum, I was always learning something new from my fellow attendees. This conference had an impressive variety of session topics, and many of them were relevant to my position.

I audited Dr. Andrew Gurstelle’s Introduction to Museum Studies class this summer, so I was delighted to see him team up with Reynolda House and our own SCA colleagues for a session titled “Reactivating Permanent Collections and Expanding Audiences.” I left the session with new ideas about how we can continue connecting our audiences (old and new) to our collections. Special shoutout to Rebecca for her excellent demonstration of Museum in a Box!

During the second day of SEMC, I took part in a half-day workshop called “The Art and Practice of Object Labeling.” This hands-on preservation workshop taught me the tools, techniques, and best practices for safely labeling materials of all shapes and sizes. The workshop attendees included carpenters, tailors, and metalsmiths, so I was able to learn even more specialized information from these experts. I’m excited to apply these new skills as I work with our university artifacts.

The final SEMC session I attended was “What They Don’t Teach in School: Real-World Museum Operations.” The presenters were current leaders in museums and archives, but their backgrounds ranged from audiovisual and information technology to finance and state parks. I have worked in all of these fields, so I felt extremely validated and represented in my career journey! The presenters emphasized that strong communication skills and interdisciplinary knowledge are crucial for success in museums, libraries, and archives. I will continue to improve in all of these areas, and I hope to attend SEMC again next year.

Carolyn R @ SEMC

I began the conference with a walking tour of Old Salem, learning about the Moravian settlement, the founding of Salem College, and historic architecture. On Wednesday, I returned for a self-guided tour and explored the Single Brothers’ House (built in 1769, expanded in 1786, restored in 1964) and The Doctor’s House (built in 1802, restored in 1980 and 2017).

One of my favorite sessions, led by staff from the North Carolina Museum of Art, focused on web accessibility. It covered how to create accessible media to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards, as required by a 2024 federal ruling. I’m excited to use the tools they shared as we improve our website and digital accessibility.

I also enjoyed “The First Impression Matters: Visitor Services as Mission-Critical Work,” where two museum professionals shared their wins and challenges. They emphasized that visitor services are central to the museum’s mission and purpose. Everything we do centers on the visitor experience. All staff members are trained to run the front desk, ensuring that visitors feel welcome, know where to check in, and feel comfortable asking questions.

This session reminded me to look through the visitor’s eyes. Poor signage, hard-to-navigate spaces, and hard-to-read text can all create a bad museum experience. This is why observation and evaluation are important tools for implementing changes.

Carolyn Z @ SEMC

SEMC was an exciting opportunity to meet and hear from people involved in so many different facets of the museum field, and who all care so much about education, preservation, inclusion, and community engagement. At a session Monday morning, I appreciated the chance to learn more about strategies for designing evaluations, understanding our target audience, and measuring how successfully we achieve visitor learning outcomes. Improving processes for evaluation is a key goal for Wake Forest Historical Museum and its interpretive planning work.

I came away from the afternoon sessions with pages of notes and ideas, excited to share inspirations for our museum’s tours and upcoming exhibits. I attended Joseph McGill’s meaningful talk about his work on the Slave Dwelling Project, where he discussed the importance of interpreting uncomfortable topics like the history of enslavement, and described powerful campfire conversations he experienced throughout his project. I also enjoyed a presentation on tactile exhibit design that focused on an exhibit at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta. I took note of several ideas for exhibit interactives we could incorporate in future exhibits to better connect with visitors.

Isabel @ SEMC

I was so excited to be able to attend SEMC for the first time! With sessions covering topics related to visitor services, collections work, education, grant writing, operations, and so many others, it was very difficult to choose. Needless to say, I had some very full days.

I attended multiple wonderful sessions, including a presentation by Stacey Watson of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture about personal perspectives and historic interpretation. I will definitely be using her strategies for introducing complex historical topics in ways that promote empathy and engagement when teaching visitors about Wake Forest’s history. I also enjoyed SEMC’s first “spark session” with multiple professionals giving short presentations under one topic, in this case clarity in the museum workplace, and a session led by South Carolina State Park Service interpreters about place-based learning with very few artifacts.

Of course, I must also mention the wonderful evening events at Körner’s Folly, Reynolda House Museum, and Kaleideum respectively. I got to meet some wonderful people from all over the region, and reconnect with some familiar faces.

Kaylin @ SEMC

As a first-year attendee at SEMC, I was very impressed with both the quality and variety of sessions. I found the differentiated nature of having both hands-on interactive sessions and traditional panel talks to be thoughtful and engaging, and I enjoyed that both myself and my colleagues working on different types of projects were able to find plenty of sessions that resonated with our work. In addition to this being my first ever year attending SEMC, I am also fairly early in my career and am new to Wake Forest University and the Winston Salem area, having started my new position at ZSR this last August. For these reasons, having a space to meet other professionals throughout the Southeast and at all stages of their careers was helpful for me to network and better understand the issues and needs of different practitioners within the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) fields in our and nearby communities.

My first day at SEMC started off with an Opening General Session talk titled “Forged Through the Storm: Resilience, Recovery, and the Power of Community” that immediately resonated with me on a personal level, as it was in regard to the impact of Hurricane Helene in Asheville and the surrounding Western NC areas. Asheville is and always will be an important place in my life, as it is where I first moved away at eighteen and began my life as an adult, where I found an interest in libraries and archival work, where some of the people closest to me continue to reside, and where I truly feel I was able to become the person I am today. Hearing about the impact that museums, arts organizations, historic sites, and cultural communities had during such a devastating time brought to light the importance of community outreach work and its ability to change lives and bring people together in times of need. This idea was expanded upon throughout other sessions I attended, like the Blowing Rock Art and History Museum’s talk, “Healing from Hurricane Helene through the Arts,” which discussed not only the importance of the community coming together to provide essential services, like food, water, and shelter during Helene, but also went over how BRAHM supported the community through outreach by providing programs, such as expressive arts therapy classes, an oral history listening day, and historical lectures to help them heal and express their trauma and grief, in addition to connecting with others in the area going through the same devastation.

Another session that stands out to me from my time at SEMC was Historic Columbia’s “A Year in the Test Kitchen: Lessons Learned in Immersive Storytelling.” This interactive session encouraged attendees to think about incorporating hands-on elements into their exhibits by using Historic Columbia’s “Heat & Hardship: The Hidden Labor of Enslaved Cooks” as a case study. In this session, panelists spoke about their financial and creative planning and how they worked to incorporate accessibility into their exhibits by using audio stops and incorporating optional interactive tactile elements into their tours. Some examples of these elements included a recipe-themed memory exercise, a “dough” kneading station using Play-Doh, and an opportunity for participants to smell, identify, and match spices to their locations of origin on a space map. In the session, attendees were encouraged to participate in these exercises ourselves, which helped us to better understand their overall effect on museum-goers. Participating in this session allowed me to gain inspiration for incorporating multi-sensory elements into future exhibits and programming opportunities, in addition to bringing my attention to the ways in which differentiated types of engagement can better support a more inclusive array of guests.

Overall, my first time experiencing SEMC was a wonderful one, and I look forward to going back again next year!

Rebecca @ SEMC

Attending my first SEMC was a wonderful experience. I had the opportunity to present alongside my WFU colleagues during the session titled “Reactivating Permanent Collections and Expanding Audiences”. My portion of the talk focused on how I originally learned about Museum in a Box after attending Hannah Sloan and Brianna Healy’s 2025 TechX presentation, “Sound, Story, and Object: Telling Digital Tales from Podcasts to Museum in a Box.” Their work directly inspired me to write a successful application for a ZSR Library Innovation Grant to acquire three Museums in a Box! While we are still in the early stages of implementation, we are very eager to explore using this technology across instruction, outreach, and exhibitions.

In preparation for our Walt Whitman play in September, graduate student intern Madeline Chanfrau spent the summer creating a dedicated Walt Whitman Museum in a Box. Madeline researched our collection holdings, developed scripts, and curated representative imagery. She then partnered with ZSR fellow Hannah Reynolds and Barry Davis from the Tech Team to record and edit audio tracks using actors from the theater department. Content development and research require significant effort, and learning the technical components carries a steep curve. Nevertheless, with support from key collaborators, including The Bridge, Madeline built an outstanding Museum in a Box unit that we anticipate using across numerous future programs. Please reach out if you would like to connect and chat about how we are utilizing or planning to implement Museum in a Box.

I also attended a memorable session presented by Joseph McGill, Sr., founder of the Slave Dwelling Project. Established in 2010, this initiative seeks to document, preserve, and raise public consciousness surrounding remaining structures where enslaved individuals lived. Historic Preservationist McGill accomplishes this by spending nights inside extant slave dwellings, facilitating “Campfire Conversations” with local communities regarding the enduring legacy of slavery, and collaborating with site managers and owners on preservation efforts. As highlighted on their site, “Mr. McGill has conducted over 250 overnights in approximately 150 different sites in 26 states and the District of Columbia. He has interacted with the descendants of both the enslaved communities and of the enslavers associated with antebellum historic sites. He speaks with school children and college students, with historical societies, community groups, and members of the public.”

What struck me most was the comprehensive range of these structures across geographic regions and varying power structures. Mr. McGill opened his session with an image of a prominent plantation main house, contrasting it with his core focus: interpreting and understanding the lived experiences of those who resided outside the grand estate in slave quarters and secondary dwellings. His presentation addressed high-profile sites like Mount Vernon and Monticello, alongside higher education institutions, National Parks Service properties, local history centers, and various other organizations. Looking ahead to Spring 2027, the Wake Forest Historical Museum will collaborate with Mr. McGill as he stays overnight in an extant slave dwelling located in the town of Wake Forest. Having learned about his “Campfire Conversations,” I look forward to observing his meaningful work firsthand so close to home.

Tanya @ SEMC

Although I had only one day at SEMC, it was a productive one! I arrived early to tour the vendor hall, collecting information on storage, exhibit panels, and furniture. The keynote address then addressed the long-term impact of Hurricane Helene on western North Carolina communities and was a strong reminder of the value of disaster planning, whether the emergency is a hurricane or a broken pipe.
I then joined the WFU session “Reactivating Permanent Collections and Expanding Audiences,” where my role was to set the stage for Rebecca’s remarks on our use of Museum in a Box. Sharing our collections is easy when visitors come to us. Special Collections & Archives (SCA) has a dedicated classroom, and the Museum has research and exhibit space. In those settings, we can bring out teaching collections that let K–12 students and other visitors handle materials and turn the pages themselves. At community events, reproductions work well at a booth. Taking hands-on experiences on the road is much harder. Like the traditional traveling-suitcase model of artifact outreach, transporting collections and maintaining duplicates safe for handling demands considerable time and labor. That challenge led us to look for new ways to connect alumni, donors, external groups, and K–12 audiences with our collections, and Museum in a Box proved a strong fit for those goals. Rebecca has written more about that work above.

In the afternoon, I attended “Curating the Future: Legacy, Storytelling, and Multigenerational Engagement” and “Building an Effective Annual Event Calendar: Fundraising and Cultivation Events.” The two sessions shared several themes: a focus on local communities, the value of weaving legacy work into digital communications, and strategies for deepening donor engagement. I ended the day meeting with Michael S. Williams of the Black on Black Project, which documents Black history in Winston-Salem through exhibitions, interviews, and events.
All in all, I enjoyed attending SEMC and look forward to attending again next year!