After becoming the new director of the Kent State University Museum July 1, Sarah Spinner Liska got to work — fashionably quickly.
In the month of September alone, Spinner Liska and her “small but mighty team” ran seven programs. She held the first-ever director’s office hours, started on plans for facility updates to make the space more welcoming, met with faculty throughout various disciplines and supported the first entirely student-run fashion show at the museum, among other projects.
The goal throughout Spinner Liska’s tenure remains simple: to provide all students, Portage County residents and those interested globally with the “world class” museum, which features collections of art, fashion, glass and other works, with programming and events.
“I really want students at the heart of our work,” said Spinner Liska, who succeeded six-year director Sarah Rogers following her retirement. “Our goal is also to serve the broader public community. A lot of the work that I’m doing is to center the museum first within the university community, then within the regional arts community and then nationally.”
Spinner Liska’s background reflects this determined attitude. She came to the U.S. from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, for a liberal arts education, earning a master’s degree in humanistic studies and bachelor’s degrees in French and history of art from Johns Hopkins University. The new director then went on to get a doctor of law and doctorate in history from Yale.
In high school, the current Beachwood resident fell in love with museum work after taking free classes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City while visiting her grandmother in the States. She then interned at the MET every summer during college, with the hope of one day working in a museum.
“I love museums as places of exploration, as places of learning and research and also as places for community to gather,” Spinner Liska said.
Most recently managing director of FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, which presented a large-scale contemporary art festival across northeastern Ohio, Spinner Liska previously founded and directed the North American Arts ‘Ennials Alliance, an international professional network connecting leaders of city-wide art exhibitions across North America.
In 2023, she was given the Ohio Museums Association’s “Professional of the Year” award.
The lawyer and historian now wants to help the Kent State University Museum, which opened in 1985, reach as many people as possible — starting with the university’s students. The space, located in Kent State’s School of Fashion Design and Merchandising building, is open Tuesday-Sunday and free for all students every day. General admission costs $5, with free entry for the public on Sundays.
“I feel museums can hold really important roles, especially on a university campus, and especially on this campus,” Spinner Liska said. “There’s an extraordinary opportunity to engage students in first-hand experiential learning opportunities in terms of classes, in terms of possible research and also programming.”
Promoting education and student creativity with new programing
As director, Spinner Liska oversees all museum operations, including fundraising, advocacy and public relations. She also works to produce new exhibitions, programs, workshops and lectures, with a focus on the university community and the broader public.
“Dr. Sarah,” as she said she’s known on campus, also works to produce new exhibitions, programs, workshops and lectures, many with an education mission.
The museum features several exhibitions and displays, including the limited-time “Hepburn Style: Katharine and Her Designers” and the “Fashion Timeline” gallery, which will run until 2028. In the future, Spinner Liska said she looks to bring in different works, like sports jerseys, to attract a broader audience.
In September, the Kent State University Museum welcomed Hollywood costume designer Isis Mussenden, who worked on films like “American Psycho” and won a Costume Designers Guild award in 2006 for her work in “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” The event, which ran as one of the museum lecture series free programs open to the public, completely filled the university’s fashion building auditorium and required overflow seating.
“That gave me a real sense of the strong interest in engaging in an interdisciplinary way with the work of the museum,” Spinner Liska said.
The museum also hosted two student-focused workshops, and Spinner Liska has plans to maintain a “robust calendar” of events and programming through the year.
“What you’ll be seeing during my tenure is a significant expansion of our student and public programming,” she said. “So, [it’ll be] a lot of varied programming meant to cater to students within the university community, but also, we hope, the broader public.”
Bringing out new aspects to art and fashion
Spinner Liska said she will work to raise the museum’s visibility throughout the greater Kent area.
To bring the museum’s Katharine Hepburn exhibit to life, she hosted a program showing Hepburn’s “Adam’s Rib” film, since the featured dress is at the Kent State University Museum, at the Cinematheque theater at The Cleveland Institute of Art. The director has plans to show the actress’ film “The Philadelphia Story” at The Nightlight theater in downtown Akron this November. In partnership with Main Street Kent for the city’s celebration of LGBTQ+ History Month and Pride Month, the museum displays a brightly colored caftan in its lobby.
She also wants to expand how people think about fashion, textiles and design, with one effort being to work with departments throughout the university.
This semester, Spinner Liska said she met with physics department faculty to see how science-related topics can relate to art and fashion. The museum currently displays a NASA space suit donated by Cleveland-area astronaut Carl Walz, which may move near Kent State’s on-campus planetarium.
“I’m really committed to building collaborations and partnerships, both within the university and across the broader community, and I am also committed to breaking down boundaries between disciplines,” she said.
Keeping with her goal of helping the museum “come to life,” Spinner Liska is working to create more space within the museum’s first floor, add and uncover more windows that look into the museum, highlight the museum’s store that features works from professional artists and create a more welcoming and bright lobby space with artwork and seating areas.
The new director said she wants to encourage and support student creators to bring new voices and ideas to the space.
The Creator Collective, a student-run organization at Kent State centered around various creative mediums, held a music-inspired fashion runway on the second floor of the museum. The university’s annual fashion show is held in the museum, but this was the first fully student-run show in the space in its 39-year history.
“It was a really important moment,” Spinner Liska said. “It was so inspiring to see the creative work and design that the students produced – and all on their own. So the museum partnered and supported however we could, but this was entirely student run.”
Two more student-run shows are already on the books, one in November and the other in April, Spinner Liska said.
“It was incredibly inspiring for me to see the museum come to life with that level of student creativity and student empowerment,” she said. “I definitely want to do more of that.”
