Adria Focht ‘transformed’ the Charlotte Museum of History. Why is she resigning?
Adria Focht is resigning as president and CEO of the Charlotte Museum of History after four years spent broadening the museum’s narrative of Charlotte history and reach into all parts of the city.
Focht “has truly transformed the museum ... and I don’t want her to go,” Dee Dixon, chair of the museum Board of Trustees told The Charlotte Observer.
Dixon announced Focht’s resignation in a message to museum supporters on Tuesday morning.
“While we will greatly miss Adria’s leadership and her passion for preservation and history education, she leaves behind a better Charlotte history museum for everyone — one that is more accessible, inclusive and financially stronger than ever before,” Dixon wrote.
Focht’s resignation is effective Dec. 31.
Pandemic pivot
Focht is credited with helping pivot the museum to a digital model when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, museum supporters said.
She made museum programming and preservation efforts more inclusive and accessible, and corporate and community support continues to grow, they said.
During the pandemic, the museum brought dozens of virtual programs to the community, launched seven new in-person exhibits and offered “COVID-friendly” visits to Charlotte’s oldest home.
“Our staff of historians knew this was not going to be a week or two ordeal,” Focht told the Observer in a September interview, referring to the pandemic. “We had to figure out how to turn our programming into digital. A silver lining in this was we advanced about 10 years in only weeks.”
Reaching K-12 students with learning opportunities has been a key part of the digital mission, she told the Observer in an interview before the announcement of her resignation was released.
In just two weeks as the museum shifted to digital, the museum released such programming as the “Unexpected Homeschoolers” series, for parents suddenly tutoring their children.
In one child-friendly episode, educators Angel Johnston and Lauren Wallace, dressed in 18th-century clothes, led viewers on a tour of the museum’s 1774 Hezekiah Alexander Homesite garden.
The museum also launched a “Lunch and Learn” series, with speakers from across the country addressing viewers remotely.
Locally, Tamara Williams, assistant professor of dance at UNC Charlotte, led students in performing “ring shouts” — a slave ritual native to the Carolinas and Georgia. Participants shuffle, stomp feet and clap while circling.
The performance happened outside the historic Siloam School in Charlotte, a Rosenwald School built about 1920 in the Jim Crow-era as a school for African-American students. About $660,000 has been raised toward a $1 million goal to move the building to the museum’s campus on Shamrock Drive.
Telling a ‘fuller story’ of Charlotte
Amid the nationwide protests following the death of George Floyd in May 2020, Focht noted the museum’s commitment and progress toward “representing our city’s whole history” in a message on its website, CharlotteMuseum.org.
“My pledge to you is that we will not stop here,” she wrote. “The museum can and will do even more to lift up the stories and experiences of all the peoples who have built our region over the centuries, especially African Americans and Indigenous Peoples.”
And that’s exactly what she did, Dixon said in Tuesday’s announcement, following through on her commitment.
“In the past year, the museum has reached more people than ever and expanded its programming and exhibits to tell a fuller story of Charlotte’s diverse history, and weather a global pandemic,” Dixon wrote.
The museum recently completed a new strategic plan that will result in even more service to the community, Dixon said. Specifics will be announced soon, she said.
During the pandemic, the museum also added new members, corporate donors and other funding partners, including Bank of America, Lowe’s, Truist and Walmart. And the museum endowment stands at a solid $4 million, Dixon said.
All of which occurred with Focht at the helm.
What’s next for Adria Focht?
Focht graduated from UNC Charlotte with a degree in art and anthropology and obtained a master’s degree in historical archaeology from East Carolina University.
Before joining the Charlotte museum in 2017, she was director and curator of the Kings Mountain Historical Museum for four years.
Before that, she held history management positions with the National Park Service, including at the Museum Resource Center in Maryland and the Martin Luther King Jr. Historic Site in Atlanta.
She also worked at the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, first at the Queen Anne’s Revenge Conservation Laboratory in Greenville, N.C., and later at the East Carolina University Field School in Historical Archaeology.
While cultural resources management is her passion, so, too, is managing natural resources, Focht told the Observer.
She is leaving to begin work on a certificate in permaculture design from Oregon State University in January, she said.
Permaculture is learning how to live a more sustainable lifestyle, she said. She hopes to teach or consult in the field and inspire others to more sustainable living, she said.
The museum will conduct a national search for her successor.
This story was originally published December 7, 2021 at 7:00 AM.