A.T. Stephens brings nearly three decades of experience as an educator and administrator of programs in museums to direct this latest phase of development for the Contemporary Art Museum, an initiative of NC State University's College of Design. A frequent lecturer on subjects pertaining to museum practice and American culture, AT continues to teach on the graduate faculty in Art Education at the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington, DC, where he currently oversees the progress students writing their graduate thesis. His courses there - "Art Across the Curriculum” and “Art and Life Long Learning" - may be of import here as CAM continues to define its programming opportunities in the Triangle region.
A.T. has worked with a variety of organizations large and small as a consultant in museum practice, including the multiple sites of Colonial Williamsburg; Thomas Jefferson's Monticello; the Levine Museum of the New South in Charlotte; and Laurel Grove, a one-room colored school in Franconia, Virginia. And as a historian and museum educator focused on the public's engagement with history, he has worked for the park service in Northern Virginia, African American-themed museums in Philadelphia and Baltimore, and served as vice-president for programs, exhibitions and research during the expansion of the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis.
A long-time advocate for museums and free-choice learning, he has served on the boards, councils or standing committees of the Octagon Museum of the American Institute of Architects, the Virginia Association of Museums, Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums, Association of Midwest Museums, Living Classrooms Foundation, Museum Education Roundtable, Visitor Studies Association, the Institute for Learning Innovation, and the American Association of Museums. He is the founding chair of the AAM's Standing Professional Committee on Diversity in Museums.
Stephens' appointment at CAM and NC State brings him back to the start of his career as an intern and, later, Administrative Associate at Reynolda House Museum of American Art in Winston-Salem. He has a Master's Degree in History and Museum Administration from Wake Forest University and is a Kellogg Fellow in Museum Education.