Karol Wight, the president and executive director of The Corning Museum of Glass since 2011, announced on April 2nd that she is planning to retire once a successor has been found. The Corning Board of Trustees is undertaking an international search, according to the museum's official announcement of imminent changes at the top of the museum acknowledged to hold the largest collection of glass in the world.
In addition to her 15-year anniversary at Corning, Wight cited the upcoming 75th anniversary of the museum's founding in 1951 as her reason for deciding to retire at this time. In the official Corning announcement, Wight states that “between these two anniversaries I have determined that the time is right. During my tenure, the Museum has grown, evolved, and become the world’s leading institution dedicated to the study of glass in all its forms."
Leaving her post as curator of antiquities at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where she had spent the bulk of her career, Wight came to CmoG as executive director in 2011, and then added the title of president in 2014. Under her leadership, CmoG has undergone numerous changes, not just in expanded infrastructure, but in less-visible institutional priorities as well. The expansions of the Corning campus are plain to see, including the new North Wing added in 2015 to house the expansive Contemporary Art + Design Galleries, which reflected Corning’s ambitions to display contemporary art and design with adequate space and prominence.
The educational activities of the museum have been majorly upgraded in the past decade as well, from the appointment of Corning's first director of education and interpretation in 2014 to the complete renovation and expansion of the Studio in 2024.
The changes under Wight's leadership have gone beyond the physical plant, such as increased digitization of artists’ resources within the Rakow Research Library and the adoption of a museum-wide DEI+Accessibility Plan in 2023. This plan increases accessibility for visitors in select exhibitions, including its upcoming exhibition Brilliant Color, where colorblindness-correcting glasses will be made available to visitors. The DEI+A initiative Wight championed is focused on diversifying the pool of artists who are offered exhibitions and artist residencies at the Museum. In January, Wight oversaw the appointment of Mustafa Hazime to the newly created position of Chief People, Culture and Belonging Officer, an expanded role that takes the lead on advancing the DEI+A Strategic Plan at an administrative level.