New CEO at Newfields wants to repair public perception INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Le Monte G. Booker Sr. joined Newfields in October as its new CEO. His time in the role begins after years of controversies and the sudden, still unexplained, exit of his predecessor. He sat down with I-Team 8’s Kyla Russell for his first television interview since his position was announced. Below is a transcription of their conversation, edited for clarity. We know you’re a Chicago native, but Indianapolis and Indiana are not strangers to you. How are you settling in so far? It’s been wonderful. I’ve just met so many amazing people, and I’ve really gotten to enjoy the restaurant scene, the cultural art scene, it’s just an amazing place. There’s so many different things to do. The restaurants are wonderful. As you know, my family and I, we’ve been here…we’ve been in Indianapolis for quite a while. My son played football for several years. Anyway, it’s been absolutely amazing that people are so friendly here. It’s just a great, great, hometown. I call it, it’s a big town, and there’s so much here for all of our citizens, but it’s been really nice settling in. How are you spending your days, other than trying out the restaurant scene and getting settled in that way? I think, you can imagine, with any role like this, the immersion of just learning is really important. So, my tactic has been to learn from the inside out. I also have learned a lot from our staff, our docents, our volunteers, our board members and the community. So, I spend a lot of time just really getting to know the Indianapolis community, and our team, and I think that that’s going to go a long way as I begin to think about what is the long term plan for Newfields. You were most recently at the Field Museum in Chicago, where you served as CFO. What about that role helped prepare you for this role? Well, the CFO role has grown immensely over the last several decades. It’s been thought that these roles are particularly over just finance, but the roles really span a huge range of responsibilities. From building retail, HR, and just so many different areas…so really getting to see how these different areas work in a museum, how museums generate resources, how it connects with the community, just the overall importance of these institutions to the community, I think that’s what’s helped me to get ready for this position. But, I really do believe that museums are incredibly important in the lives of people, especially young people, and that’s why this job is so attractive to me. What would you like people to view as your main goals in this role? Well, I think the first goal, being here for five months now, but the first goal is we want to make sure that we are delivering this institution’s mission. That is to create exceptional experiences in the lives of people, in art, and nature. That is the first priority. We want to deliver that mission, we want to deliver it well. When visitors come here, we want to make sure that no matter your background, that you feel welcome, that you feel delighted, that you bring your family here, that you have a wonderful time. So, I think that this is all very, very important to me, and I am so excited about the direction that we’re moving in. You come in following a few years of controversy. I know that’s not “new” news to you. The reason behind the departure of the CEO prior to you is still a mystery to a lot of the community. Have you been told the reason she resigned? Well, before coming to Newfields, of course, as anyone would do, I did my research, and what I can say is that Newfields is on the right track. We have done so much amazing work to connect with our communities. You come here, you come to our events, I think what you will be just absolutely amazed with is the level of diversity, of the community that comes here. So, what I would say, is we’ve come a long way. We work very hard to connect with our community, and to make sure that we’re embracing everyone that comes here. Give me a few examples of the things you guys are doing to really hone in on connecting with the community. Well, the first piece is that we are committed to expanding and rounding out our art collections. So, acquiring art from underrepresented groups. As you can see, these galleries are absolutely amazing, but the more you walk through our galleries, you’re seeing the diversity of art that is here and that is really important. We are connecting with our schools. We recently had a shoe giveaway where we gave out 2,000 pairs of sneakers to IPS students. It really was a way to bring kids into our institution and let them see what is here and why this place is important, and hopefully inspire them as a place that they can begin to build a life for themselves, a career for themselves. We have a new community engagement team. We’re doing, we’re making changes there. We’re building up our community engagement team in our department, because of our commitment to the overall community. In 2021, a job posting for a new director stated applicants would need to maintain the museum’s “traditional, core, white art audience.” It prompted major outcry within the community. It’s often said that perception becomes reality. How are you working to repair that perception?  What I can say is absolutely, I am absolutely committed to assuring that no matter your race, gender, your your religion, your age, what have you, that Newfields is a place that opens its arms to all. That is of incredible importance to me. That work has continued. It will always be here, and we will continue to have that commitment to our community. The Field Museum in Chicago isn’t a stranger to controversy. In past years, the museum has been forced to confront its history of having human remains many say were unethically obtained from Native American communities – even moving to cover some of those displays last year. As CFO, did you have any involvement in working through how to confront that controversy?  I think the entire leadership team at the Field Museum is responsible in how we address those controversies. I think that the conversation is ongoing, but we have tremendous, tremendous respect for our Native American community. That’s why we’ve done so much work to be responsible with how we handle these objects and we have included the voices of our Native American community at The Field Museum, and we do that as well here at Newfields. Do you feel that having confronted that and worked with the leadership there to do so, prepared you for some of the conversations you would have here? Yeah, absolutely, it is a very complicated endeavor to address these issues and to make sure that you’re being respectful of the community, especially our Native American community. Absolutely, because of this controversy, this challenge is a nationwide challenge. Of course, having such a challenge to address at the Field Museum has given me some insights on how we may move forward here at Newfields. You’ve spoken about the research you did before taking this job, what had you heard about Newfields prior to that? Well, I just learned a lot about just the absolute beauty of this organization, and it has not failed to delight. Before taking the job, I made several trips here, doing some secret shopping trips here, and was just amazed at the dedication of our staff and our docents. They’re just absolutely amazing. The way they would go out of their way to help me as I pretended to not know where certain things were at here, but I was absolutely blown away at the devotion that our staff have to the community, and our visitors. I know those are some of the trips you took when you were considering taking this job, but when is the first time you came to Newfields? Oh, wow. I’d say somewhere around, maybe 10 years ago, I don’t have the exact date but probably around 10 years ago,. So it’s been on your radar? Yeah, it’s been on my radar. You talk about many of the commitments that Newfields has to making sure that all people feel welcome, is your staff continuing to do DEI training, or training along those lines? Yeah, we do offer a suite of training around DEI to our staff, and it allows them to continue to explore and understand the complexities surrounding DEI related issues. But, you know, again, for me, it is all about community. The community in which we exist here at Newfields, is a very diverse community. And so we have to pay very, very close attention to the people who are here, that we welcome. So, we will always be looking to be a very strong and responsible corporate citizen within our community. I am really proud of the work and the progress that we’ve made. The community is likely going to watch this, but if they were sitting right here, sitting in my seat, what would you specifically say to them? I would say to continue to come here, to continue to be a part of our future. We really respect the community. We want to hear from you. You are our partners in becoming a much, much better institution. Without you, we can’t do it. We need your support. I think that any institution, there’s no such thing as a perfect institution, but with your involvement, we can become a much, much better museum. We can contribute more to Indianapolis and to making our wonderful city an even better place to live than it already is, a more attractive destination for visitors. I would ask them to just be excited. We’ve got an exciting future ahead of us. Again, that just continue to come bring your family, and to help us to talk to us about how we can become better. Ticket prices have increased. Do you hear that and want to make a change to that? Or don’t? Where does that stand? Yeah, I think that this is a continuing concern expressed by the visitors all about these things. What I would say is that these are large, complicated institutions, and we do, we need the community support to run facilities such as this. It’s 152 acres of beautiful, lush grounds. You can see here. It’s just an amazing building. We’ve got over 350 employees. We have docents, and also we have many community partners, companies that that depend on us, that work with us. All of that requires a level of support from the community, and we hope that they can appreciate that. And so as far as tickets…I think what’s important is to make sure that you find ways to provide accessibility to all of the community, regardless of income. I think that we are we are making those efforts. So, accessibility to the institution is what’s important. We make ourselves accessible with providing for free days, with providing for reduced memberships, many free memberships as well. So, we are continuing to find ways to open our arms and bring in the community, from all backgrounds, but again, what I will say is that support for institutions such as this is incredibly important to making sure that we protect these valuable treasures that are here. What’s something people may not know about you? The first thing is that I absolutely love art. You know, growing up as a kid in grade school, I could paint good enough that I was allowed to sit in the back of the room and miss some classtime to do some paintings. I just absolutely love art, I respect it, and I really want to see our artists support it. I believe that art and nature can really transform lives. As a kid, growing up, I will tell you, one of the most amazing and fun times of my life was leaving the classroom and going to museums. It was an absolute highlight. Growing up in a very poor neighborhood, I would say that the trips to museums had a huge impact on what I decided to do with my career. So, I will say, museums are incredibly important. I love them, I love art. I love nature, and I hope that you do, you do as well. The last piece is, you know, back in Illinois, one of my favorite places was Starved Rock because, you know, it’s a local place an hour drive away, and again, it’s just a place with so many canyons and what have you. I just love getting out and doing all that hiking and being amongst nature. So, looking forward to doing the same here in Indy in Indiana and I’ve heard we’ve got some amazing, amazing parks here as well. Is there anything else we haven’t covered that you want people to hear? Come to Newfields. Come on in and see us. Bring your families. We have we’ve just started Spring Bloom. Go to discovernewfields.org. Please bring your families. It’s going to be an amazing time. We just finished our Art in Bloom here. It was amazing. Now, Spring Bloom is in full bloom. Also, coming up is our Mother’s Day Weekend. Please plan on bringing your mother and family here. It’s going to be a full weekend where we celebrate moms. It’s going to be a great time, and there are many new announcements to come. So, I ask that the public keeps in touch about The Lume and so forth and our summer exhibitions that are coming. Please just stay in such a stay connected at discovernewfields.org and please come and see us, bring your family in. Watch the full interview on WISH-TV’s YouTube page ...read more read less