{"id":423566,"date":"2026-08-04T13:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T13:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/423566\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T13:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T13:42:08","slug":"the-curator-of-change-how-micah-parzen-remade-the-museum-of-us-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/423566\/","title":{"rendered":"The curator of change: How Micah Parzen remade the Museum of Us \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whenever Micah Parzen is having a bad day, he walks over to the west wing of the Museum of Us<\/a> and slips into the \u201cRace: Power, Resistance & Change\u201d<\/a> exhibit. In a quiet corner, he stands still, allowing the museum\u2019s hallowed walls and the weight of history beneath his feet to center and ground him.<\/p>\n

In Parzen\u2019s world as CEO of the 111-year-old museum, bad days are allowed, and he often encourages staff members to acknowledge and experience them in their totality.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst and foremost, we support each other,\u201d Parzen said Thursday during an interview in the mezzanine overlooking the museum\u2019s grand lobby. \u201cWe show up for each other. We create conditions where people feel comfortable bringing their whole selves to work \u2014 that it\u2019s OK to have a bad day. We all do. We\u2019re all human, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

In the years he\u2019s been at the helm of the Museum of Us, good days have outnumbered the bad. Not because Parzen chose to ignore the bad but because he chose to turn the bad into good.<\/p>\n

As a leader, \u201cI\u2019m not coming\u00a0from a fear-based perspective but instead from a loving place. You know, trying to show up for people and support them in ways that are not about you but about them, and really bringing that sort of energy to the work,\u201d Parzen said.<\/p>\n

Since 2010, that ethos \u2014 grounded in transparency, vulnerability and, well, love \u2014 has been the hallmark of his leadership. Today, Parzen\u2019s 16-year run<\/a> as chief executive officer of the Museum of Us ends. It\u2019s his last day at the Balboa Park cultural institution, whose storied history dates back to 1915, when it was established as the San Diego Museum of Man as part of the Panama-California Exposition.<\/p>\n

\u201cSixteen years is a long time,\u201d Parzen said, \u201cand I\u2019ve always been a believer that organizations need new and fresh leadership that can bring new ideas to the table and take an organization to the next level. I firmly believe that the museum is in such a good place right now that it\u2019s time for somebody with a very different lived experience to help take the leadership helm and take the museum to a place where I would never be able to take it.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Sept. 1, he will become executive director of the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley,<\/a> where, he said, \u201cI have an extraordinary opportunity to continue the work of relational repair that we\u2019ve been doing here at the Museum of Us for many years now.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a bittersweet moment for him and the museum\u2019s staff. But it\u2019s a triumphant exit, too, for the 56-year-old Parzen, who took an institution in distress \u2014 financially and operationally\u00a0 \u2014 and turned it into a museum now considered to be at the forefront of a decolonization movement that\u2019s transforming cultural institutions across the country \u2014 some willingly, others unwillingly.<\/p>\n

The Museum of Us falls squarely in the former. For more than a decade now, it has been working diligently to right the wrongs of its past.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, an executive summary outlined everything the museum has done in the last few years. The three-page treatise began: \u201cThe Museum of Us (formerly the San Diego Museum of Man) inspires human connections by exploring the human experience \u2014 in all of its beauty and its messiness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWith our community\u2019s guidance,\u201d it continued, \u201cwe\u2019ve transformed an old-school anthropology museum with a legacy of colonial and racist harm into a human-centered museum that builds empathy and healing. We\u2019re a place for everybody now, and especially for those who haven\u2019t been able to tell their own stories from their perspective in museums such as ours.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"San<\/a>Micah Parzen is leaving the Museum of Us after 16 years to join the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley. (Nelvin C. Cepeda \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)
\n\u2018Failure was not an option\u2019<\/p>\n

How the Museum of Us became \u201ca place for everybody\u201d can be traced to the moment Parzen crossed the threshold on Aug. 9, 2010. He was a 40-year-old attorney in downtown San Diego, a partner in the labor and employment division of Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps. Besides a law degree, he had a doctorate in anthropology from Ohio\u2019s Case Western Reserve University,<\/a> where, for his dissertation, he wrote about therapy programs for Navajo teens. That combination caught the eye of the museum\u2019s board, whose members were looking for someone to reinvent the museum.<\/p>\n

From a field of 90 applicants, the board chose Parzen. It was a bold choice: picking someone who\u2019s never worked in a museum before \u2014 a move that, Parzen admitted, raised the eyebrows of many in the museum community.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn many ways, I flipped the script on that,\u201d he said. \u201cInstead of that being a weakness, I turned it into a strength, and the way I did that is I realized that I just didn\u2019t have the baggage that so many others had around me in the field about what a museum should be, who it should be for, how it should be run.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it allowed me to ask sort of the dumb questions about why are we doing things this way, and why are we focusing on this, and why are we prioritizing these things and not these other things, and not be OK with the answer that \u2018Well, that\u2019s just how we\u2019ve always done it.\u2019 It allowed me to kind of bring my own sense of creativity and partner with others to do really innovative things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me failure was not an option,\u201d he said. \u201cI left a lucrative law practice. I was a partner at one of the largest firms in San Diego, and I sacrificed a lot to transition to work that was really aligned with my values and that I thought would feed my soul instead of eat away at my soul.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Parzen became CEO, he joined a museum deep in crisis, its finances in tatters and morale at an all-time low. In 2007, missed financial projections forced it to dip deeply into its reserves to the tune of $1 million. Two years later, the executive director was dismissed, a move that shook the board and enraged longtime donors. The firing jeopardized its accreditation with the American Association of Museums.<\/p>\n

Those, however, were hardly the only bumps on the road for the museum. For decades, it had been grappling with an elephant in the room: How could it continue being San Diego\u2019s anthropology museum of record knowing that since its inception, it has promulgated what the museum itself called \u201ca legacy of colonial and racist harm\u201d?<\/p>\n

Shortly after his arrival, Parzen would take the museum in a direction that would shake the institution even more. And it all started with an exhibit about race.<\/p>\n

\u2018Real turning point\u2019<\/p>\n

Six months into his tenure, a canceled exhibit forced the staff to look for a replacement. Parzen had already been \u201clooking desperately for something to begin a process of transformation, not knowing where that would lead, and I saw that there had been a cancellation in the schedule, so we immediately jumped on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u201d was the exhibit \u201cRace: Are We So Different?\u201d<\/a> The museum\u2019s description called it \u201can award-winning traveling exhibit about the science of race, how it functions as a cultural construct, and the experience of race and racism in everyday life.\u201d It had previously been at the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, Maine,<\/a> widely recognized for its decolonization efforts.\n<\/p>\n

That exhibition, Parzen said, was \u201cthe real turning point.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was walking through the gallery one day, and I saw an older woman sitting on a bench, and I asked her, \u2018Did you like the exhibit?\u2019 She said, \u2018I love it! My family and I are visiting from Wisconsin. We\u2019ve always been prejudiced against people of color. That\u2019s just how we were raised.\u2019 And then she said, \u2018I\u2019m 86 years old now, and I finally get it. Race just doesn\u2019t matter that much. God put people on this earth for the same opportunity, and they should have that opportunity.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

For Parzen, what came next was an epiphany that would change the trajectory of the museum\u2019s journey.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was in that moment that we thought, \u2018Wow, we can have this kind of impact by expanding people\u2019s hearts and minds \u2026,\u201d he said. \u201cWe thought this is the direction we want to go and even more so.\u201d<\/p>\n

To do so, Parzen and the museum\u2019s board and staff would have to do a lot of soul-searching.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t bring an exhibit about race to the museum \u2026 without looking under the hood of your own privilege and how you as an institution have wielded that privilege to harm others and may be continuing to do that unintentionally or unknowingly. And so it really led us to do a deep excavation of really reflecting on who we had harmed as an institution over many years and what that harm had looked like and what might it look like to begin to partner with them in a way that we could start to build up trust anew and engage in that process of relational repair.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the aforementioned summary, the museum said that for \u201cmore than 90 years, it \u2018collected\u2019 tens of thousands of \u2018artifacts\u2019 in violent ways, at worst, and through inequitable means, at best.\u201d<\/p>\n

To address that, Parzen approached the board and suggested a stunning idea. The museum, in its approach, hurt and damaged many communities, especially those in the Kumeyaay and Luise\u00f1o tribes. To repair the harm, Parzen would like to return the \u201cartifacts\u201d back to where they rightfully belonged. That would call for an assessment and possible repatriation of what the museum has identified as more than 75,000 \u201ccultural resources from 185 Indigenous communities throughout the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe relationships that we had with Indigenous communities were riddled with distrust and anger and frustration,\u201d Parzen said. \u201cThey had been coming to this institution and many others like ours and trying to be heard and express what was important to them and asked to be listened to. But it always fell on deaf ears.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Museum<\/a>Micah Parzens is leaving the Museum of Us in Balboa Park after 16 years at the helm. Under his watch, the museum has become one of the leaders in the decolonization movement in American museums. (Nelvin C. Cepeda \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)
\n\u2018Bless and release\u2019<\/p>\n

For Parzen, the time to begin listening had finally arrived. The board had hired him to reinvent the museum, and Parzen proposed steps that he thought would jumpstart that reinvention. His recommendation shook the museum to its core. But, he thought, it was an approach that, if done properly, could have implications beyond Balboa Park.<\/p>\n

And indeed it has. The Museum of Us, under Parzen\u2019s leadership, has been hailed<\/a> as one of the leading institutions on the front lines of decolonization efforts, undoing more than a century of policies and programs that not only promoted but often celebrated the consequences of colonization.<\/p>\n

His proposal came at a cost \u2014 one that Parzen was more than willing to pay.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt that time, there was a process we called \u2018bless and release\u2019 that, once we had enough critical mass that this was the direction we were going,\u201d he said, \u201cif that\u2019s not something that feels comfortable to you or that you believe in or that aligned with your values, that\u2019s OK. While we will try to share with you why we think this is the right direction, if you need to peel off \u2026 we support that and we thank you for your service, we bless and release you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat happened, both on the staff and on the board,\u201d Parzen said. \u201cThe work we were doing from a decolonial perspective, particularly back then, conflicted with how many of our team had been trained as museum professionals \u2014 you know it\u2019s about the quote unquote artifact at all costs. We don\u2019t call them artifacts anymore, we call them belongings. It was not about honoring the wishes of Indigenous communities. It was about what\u2019s best for, you know, what\u2019s in the museum\u2019s holdings and what\u2019s best for the museum.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since that fateful interaction with an 86-year-old woman from Wisconsin, Parzen has led the museum through a remarkable transformation, both inside and outside its walls.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver time \u2026 we began reflecting on how it must feel to have your sacred family belongings \u2014 stolen from or otherwise given up by you under duress \u2014 locked in a glass case for others to gawk at, accompanied by ill-informed stories that you had no part in telling,\u201d the museum declared in its treatise. \u201cWe knew we had to do better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under his watch, in 2020, the museum rolled out a rebranding campaign that went well beyond changing its name<\/a> from San Diego Museum of Man to the Museum of Us, a move that it says was a way to reflect \u201cboth the museum\u2019s anti-racist and decolonial journey as well as its aspiration to become a museum that is truly for all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The renaming wasn\u2019t just a cosmetic change, though. It was part of a larger strategic plan to truly reimagine what it means to be an anthropological institution in modern America.<\/p>\n

Over the years, the museum outlined a litany of policy and philosophical changes, all laid out under the \u201cDecolonizing Initiatives\u201d section of its website.<\/a> In it, the museum said it recognizes \u201cthat our mission can only authentically be fulfilled through a decolonial process that centers around truthfulness, accountability and reconciliation. \u2026 The heart of our decolonizing initiatives work is to acknowledge and redress the ways that our museum participated in the colonial enterprise, both intentionally and unintentionally.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2018, it launched its Colonial Pathways Policy,<\/a> in large part \u201ca commitment to return any cultural resource acquired from an Indigenous community by way of a colonial pathway back to its rightful home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Internally, it revisited its staff pay structure, making it more equitable. It rebuilt its board of trustees \u201cto better reflect our community and vision,\u201d with 52% of the board composed of people of color. And last year, it launched The Homeward Project,<\/a> described as an \u201cenhanced commitment to audit all cultural materials in our care and support community-led decisions about their future return, stewardship or display.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taken piecemeal, a policy change here and there may seem inconsequential. Viewed in its totality, the changes are radical \u2014 a museum more than a century old basically flipping everything on its head and making a very public pivot, for the better, all in real time.<\/p>\n

No one\u2019s been more impressed with how it all unfolded than Ileana Ovalle, the outgoing chair of the museum\u2019s board of trustees.<\/p>\n

\u201cMicah led us through a transformation that has positioned the museum remarkably for the future,\u201d said Ovalle, chief strategy and governance officer at the Qualcomm Institute at UC San Diego and also the first woman of color to chair the museum\u2019s board in its 111-year history. \u201cUnder Micah, the museum shifted away from collecting and exhibiting objects from around the world. Today, we engage local and global communities so they can tell their own stories, in their own voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur board, staff and donors are aligned to carry our mission forward: to inspire human connections by exploring the human experience. This is the heart and legacy Micah leaves behind and one we will carry forward. Needed now more than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

That legacy is the result of much self-reflection on Parzen\u2019s part.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took a lot of work, personal work, particularly in terms of me being a very privileged White male and having walked through the world and in the world in a certain way in my whole life to understand my own privilege and how I\u2019ve wielded that privilege in ways that at times has been harmful to others,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Part of the work is \u201ccultivating a garden of sorts where the alchemy is just right and others can really come together and thrive both individually and collectively in service of really meaningful work.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Parzen, the journey may be ending at the Museum of Us today, but the decolonization work will continue 510 miles north of San Diego at UC Berkeley, where more than 3.5 million items are waiting to be analyzed and, if necessary, repatriated.<\/p>\n

But before that work, he has a couple of things in his office left to pack up: the framed David Bowie print he bought from the San Diego Art Institute next door after the singer died in 2016 and a big metal arrow emblazoned with the words \u201cAll You Need Is Love.\u201d It was a gift from a trustee many years ago, but today, of all days, it holds deeper meaning.<\/p>\n

In Parzen\u2019s world, empathy and understanding go a long way, but in the end, \u201cpeople who know me would probably anticipate what I would say \u2026 that all you really need is love. I get teary-eyed just saying that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that you can\u2019t just talk about the lovely, wonderful daisy-making, Pollyanna aspects of love, you have to also delve into the darker side, the shadow side, both as an individual and as an organization, and you have to hold a space for all of that to exist simultaneously because two things and more can be true. When you do all that in a sort of container of love, all things are possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whenever Micah Parzen is having a bad day, he walks over to the west wing of the Museum…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423567,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[4549,7,967,181,74,84,76,75,420,1696,18740],"class_list":["post-423566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-balboa-park","tag-california","tag-entertainment","tag-latest-headlines","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-things-to-do","tag-top-stories-sdut","tag-visual-arts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}