Global Museum

In 2014, the Museum Studies Program closed its gallery in the Humanities Building to reorganize and move the collections to newly renovated spaces in the Fine Arts Building, including a new exhibition gallery, a state-of-the-art collections preservation facility, and a teaching classroom and digital lab. This reorganization led to the establishment of the Global Museum, a university museum that serves as a teaching lab for the Museum Studies program, an academic resource for the university, and a public space for the greater Bay Area community. Visit us in Room 203 of the Fine Arts Building! Admission is free.

Mission

The mission of the Global Museum is to serve as a responsible steward of cultural heritage, a place of scholarship, community, and engagement, and a space in which to appreciate the power of diverse communities in a globally-connected world. The Global Museum creates experiences that foster life-long learning, collaboration with and among diverse communities, and that encourage reflection about global society and our common humanity.

Vision

The vision for the Global Museum is to serve as a vibrant place of education, an emerging center of community, and as a steward of the world’s irreplaceable cultural collections. The Global Museum will also be a place of learning that reflects and models highly ethical, community- and educationally-focused museum practice; that supports active visitor engagement with long-standing and newly emerging challenges; and that fosters outward-looking community involvement. We believe that museums, in addition to focusing on the past, can play a transformative, future-oriented role in our globally-connected society.

Programming for All

The Global Museum stewards outstanding University-owned collections from the Ancient Mediterranean, Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas. We use family and student-oriented exhibitions as bases for innovative educational programming for SF State, the extended San Francisco community, and Bay Area school districts. Students in the undergraduate Minor and the graduate Master's programs in Museum Studies, as well as volunteers from other departments on campus, are involved in all aspects of museum operations during the academic year. Contact us if you'd like to be a volunteer!

The Global Museum is an institutional member of the following organizations:

• American Alliance of Museums (Tier III Member)
• California Association of Museums
• Association of Academic Museums and Galleries
• Cultural Connections