Q&A: Exhibiting tendencies

Kirk Baird

Sunday, Aug. 6, 2000 | 11:21 a.m.

When Suzanne LeBlanc took over as executive director of the Lied Discovery Children's Museum in September 1991, she knew she faced a difficult challenge.

She was taking over a facility barely a year old and had to work to help create the support structure to help the museum function, such as operational systems, emergency procedures and exhibit repair and development procedures. Then there was the problem of the city's image. "Las Vegas has the reputation for entertainment stereotype some people hold," LeBlanc said. "I wanted to be a part in changing that."

And to that end she has -- partially -- by helping develop the museum to where it draws 100,000 visitors annually -- up to 30 percent of whom, she said, are tourists. In addition, the children's museum, which is a private nonprofit educational institution, is quickly and quietly developing a national reputation, winning several awards in the process.

Not bad for the 50-year-old Massachusetts native, who looked to continue her family's legacy in journalism when she graduated from college. LeBlanc recently took time from her hectic schedule to discuss the museum.

Las Vegas Sun: I understand you didn't start out with a career in a children's museum in mind. Talk about the process of how you first got interested in working at a children's museum.

Suzanne LeBlanc: I was majoring in journalism and photo journalism at Boston University's School of Public Communication, and I had seen the director of the Boston Children's Museum on television. He was talking about the Boston Children's Museum. And I thought it sounded like an interesting place to visit and do a photo essay of. So I visited and talked to people, and found this incredible excitement there that made me very curious about what it was that was making not only the visitors, but the staff who worked there, so excited. I decided to do a three-month internship (at the museum) before I started my journalism career. At the end of that I was asked to have a promotion and to take a permanent job there. I basically worked my way up there through the years -- 15 years there, every two or three years getting a promotion to a new position -- so I continued to learn a lot.

Sun: Have you ever regretted that decision?

SL: No, not really. It's a good environment for me, I love the arts. I'm a good leader and manager. I got to use my writing and psychology degree in managing people and writing articles for the profession, so I get to use a lot of my skills. I haven't regretted it at all. It's been a good career for me.

Sun: What is the difference between a children's museum and an "adult" museum?

SL: Children's museums are defined by a couple of very important things. One is that they're defined by their audience, as opposed to an art museum, which is first defined by its art collection. Secondly, children's museums are specializing in interactive learning experiences. Children learn best from direct interaction with objects, so they are able to touch things and interact with them and to learn in a variety of modes.

Sun: How has the museum grown since you've been there?

SL: It's grown quite a bit. We were bringing in about $600,000 in revenue when I first came here, and now we are budgeted at $1.6 million. We have become a nationally acclaimed institution for a number of our programs: our YouthWorks and Art- Smarts programs for low-income families. YouthWorks is a work-experience, leadership-training program for teenagers, and ArtSmarts is an artist-in-residence for teenagers. And those have won national recognition and are funded both locally and nationally by corporations and foundations.

Sun: What does this national exposure mean for the museum?

SL: It makes us available for more funding nationally. It positions us as a quality institution wherever we go for money -- locally, regionally or nationally.

Sun: What are your goals for the museum, or have you accomplished everything you wanted to accomplish for it?

SL: Not everything, but quite a bit. My next big goal is to do a major exhibit renovation. We've been open 10 years, and a lot of the same exhibits are the same and we'd like to really look at the whole exhibit floor and renovate the bulk of the museum. We just opened an early childhood exhibit, so that would stay, and (we're) really looking at the model and working in that style. So that's a major goal. The other is to increase the museum's budget and endowment even more.

Sun: What do you hope children get out of the museum?

SL: I think the most important thing is an excitement for learning and getting inspired about anything (children) might see in the museum so that they want to go on and learn more about it. Museums, for the most part, aren't places where in-depth learning occurs. So what you hope is that they'll get very excited about something here and then go some place else to learn more, whether it be a library or school. So that sparking an interest is what I feel museums -- and children's museums in particular -- do best. And also to give kids a sense that learning can be fun and that it's something that can go on for a lifetime.