A group of former Anchorage Museum employees is calling for an investigation into the leadership and work culture under its director, Julie Decker.
June 9, 2022
“There’s just a real pattern of toxicity that has been going on for years,” said Kirsten Anderson, one of the authors of the letter. She was deputy director and chief curator of the museum until she resigned in 2020. “Our focus for the past few years has been on navigating the museum and staff through this pandemic in the most human way possible and I’m proud of how we have all pulled together to do that,” she wrote.
Carla Beam, the chair of the museum’s board of directors, said the board is taking the concerns in the letter seriously, but did not elaborate on its next steps. Decker has been the museum’s director since 2013. The museum currently employs 67 people, according to Decker, and had an annual budget of about $10 million last year, accordingJesus Landin-Torrez, a former curator and signatory of the letter, said they experienced micro-aggressions and felt excluded during his year there. Landin-Torrez identifies as chicano.