High Profile: Director thinks about Avery's possibilities

Patricia Williams Lessane had never heard of the Avery Research Center or the College of Charleston, and didn't know very much about South Carolina when an e-mail from a colleague in Germany arrived.

The message was saying that Avery needed an executive director and urged her to apply for the job.

At the time, she was teaching nontraditional students at Roosevelt University and developing programs to highlight exhibits at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, her hometown.

Deciding to seek the position at Avery, a research center for African-American history and culture, was easy, says Lessane.

"It was a small museum, a gallery, and it had public programs," Lessane says. "It was an opportunity to work in a building where people work on preserving our stuff. I could not have Googled this job description."

In focus

While becoming acquainted with Avery these past six months, Lessane has been surprised about the way it is perceived.

"So many people have so many ideas about what Avery is, the direction we should be going in, and what we should be doing on a daily basis," Lessane says. Some of that stems from not knowing what Avery is, some of it from those knowing what they want Avery to be, she says.

"It's important to me that folks know that Avery is part of the community, but also part of the College of Charleston," Lessane says. "That does not mean it's more one than the other, it just means it's unique and distinctive."

Since coming to Avery, Lessane has developed some ideas of her own about the center's future direction.

"We want to focus on the experiences of blacks throughout the state. We need to be serving not just Charleston, but the entire Lowcountry area," Lessane says.

The large percentage of blacks in the United States with ancestors who passed through the Port of Charleston during slavery puts the Avery Research Center in a position to tell the story of the African diaspora as well, she says.

In addition, Lessane wants to develop programs to attract more schoolchildren to Avery. She has met with the Charleston County School Board about potential

partnerships.

Avery is asking the speakers it brings to lecture in its programs to spend time working in schools.

That includes speakers coming for programs on Frederick Douglass and Robert Smalls and to observe the 20th anniversary of the film "Daughters of the Dust," directed by Julie Dash.

Another focus, she says, will be on developing innovative ways to tell stories that are documented by Avery's collections.

"The goal is to develop interactive exhibits going forward," she says. "Our holdings are so rich, and we really need to make sure that faculty and students know what a gem they have. Obviously, we will have to have documents encased, but there is no reason we can't also have interactive boards."

Outside the Avery building, Lessane wants to have a board marking every historic monument in Harleston Village, the neighborhood where it is located. The board would feature headsets so that visitors could listen to the stories associated with the monuments.

Lessane also wants to hire a public historian to develop programs around topics shaping the African-American experience in Charleston. "There seems to be a lack of folk who want to talk about the nitty-gritty of race here in Charleston. There is a fear of disrupting its image as a genteel place. Why can't we be honest about what's going on day to day? I don't think everything has to be a fight."

Passion, networking

Deborah Harrington, a retired foundation executive and community organizer in Chicago, has known Lessane for 20 years. She says that Lessane's passion for meeting challenges affecting blacks everywhere will be important to her job at Avery, but the center also will benefit from her being an extraordinary networker.

"She really taught me that there is such intrinsic value in networking. I watched her network in the most amazing and effective way, not only to meet people, but use those connections to elevate her understanding of issues, elevate her stature and to connect people.

"I have watched her grow and thrive from modest beginnings and do some very extraordinary things, and she'll continue to do those things in Charleston."

Conseula Francis is director of the College of Charleston's African-American studies program.

"I think she has a really great, energetic blend of academic curiosity and professional museum experience," Francis says "She has shown a great deal of interest in the African-American studies curriculum. She's thinking about what Avery is now and what it can be in the future. She's thinking about Avery's possibilities on a national stage."

Lessane is excited about coming to work because she believes that what she does there really matters, that she is not pushing papers, Francis says.

"What I gather is that the most important thing to her is to establish a set of programs and practices at Avery so that people know about them and expect them every year. It's important to her that Avery does not exist on the margins of what people do here at the college. She wants it to become integral to what people do."

Reach Wevonneda Minis at 937-5705.