Description:
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art is committed to preserving, exhibiting, researching, and interpreting art in ways that deepen the public and scholarly understandings of Asia and the world. Beginning with a 1906 gift that paved the way for the museum’s opening in 1923, the museum now stewards one of the world’s most important collections of Asian art, with works dating from antiquity to the present, from China, Japan, Korea, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the pre-Islamic Near East, and the Islamic world (inclusive of Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa). The museum also stewards an important collection of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American art. The museum’s galleries, laboratories, archives, and library are located on the National Mall in Washington, DC, and are part of the world’s largest museum complex, which welcomes twenty to thirty million visitors each year. The museum is free and open to the public 364 days a year, making its exhibitions, programs, learning opportunities, and digital initiatives accessible to global audiences.
DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
- Processes all tour requests via the museum website and creates Sign-up Genius schedules to inform docents of vacancies. Once a tour is assigned, tour coordinator publishes tour schedules on a weekly basis by using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, which are then posted on the docent website and shared with departmental colleagues.
- Communicates in a professional and timely manner with staff, National Museum of Asian Art docents and the public, including answering emails, responding to tour requests and inquiries received via the museum website, and responding to telephone calls within one business day.
- Prepares confirmation materials for distribution to docents and reserved groups on a weekly basis. Monitors all correspondence between reserved groups and docents to maintain clear communication and the delivery of a completed tour.
- Assigns facilitation roles for online tours to staff, interns, and docents. Facilitates tours as needed.
- Creates master tour schedules for all public docent tours and programs and assigns and/or designates docents to lead individual tours, and then publishes public tour schedule on museum website.
- Supports the design and development of tours and programs that align with the museum’s strategic plan by writing and disseminating related marketing copy. Uses Asana project management software to monitor progress of promotional text and images for docent programs.
- Works with Manager, Docent Programs and Education Specialist for K-12 Learning to create specialized tours and programs that accompany special events within the museum.
- Supports the compilation and development of curriculum and resources to support training and evaluation of docents.
- Participates in the training and documentation of all virtual and onsite docent trainings, and as needed trains docents by providing onsite and online teaching.
- As needed, supports the identification, recruitment, interviewing and selection of potential docents to join new training classes.
- Performs other duties as required.