-----Original Message-----
From: Beth M. Wilkins [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 1:48 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: University of Nebraska State Museum
Hello all,
On March 10, 2003, the University of Nebraska State Museum research support
staff was called to meetings with the Vice Chancellor of Research and his
staff to announce that the Museum was listed on the first proposed round of
cuts for the University of Nebraska. On Thursday March 13, the following
people received letters of termination even though the cuts were only
proposed.
Curator of the Division of Botany Dr. Margaret R. Bolick. Collection
Manager Linda L. Rader.
Curator of the Division of Entomology Dr. Brett Ratcliffe. Collection
Manager Alexander Riedel.
Curators of Vert. Paleontology Dr. Michael Voorhies and Bob Hunt.
Collection Manager George Corner. There are 4 preparators.
Curators of Zoology Dr. Patricia Freeman and Dr. Hugh Genoways. Collection
Manager Tom Labedz. This collection is slated for dispersal. Dr. Genoways
is also the Director of the Museum Studies program at UNL, which is also on
the chopping block, leaving 20+ students without a program to graduate
from. The program brings in $200,000
annually in tuition and fees and costs the University $60,000 to run.
Curator of Parasitology Dr. Scott Gardner. Collection Manager Mauritz
(Skip) Sterner. Curatorial Assistant Ina van der Veen stands to lose
employment with the firing of the principal investigator on the grant she
is funded with.
Curator of Anthropology Dr. Thomas P. Myers. Collection Manager Beth M.
Wilkins. There are two additional Curatorial Assistants and a Graduate
Student who will lose their positions due to the firing of the principal
investigator on their current grants and due to the dispersal of the
collections.
Mueller Planetarium Director Jack Dunn. Planetarium to be closed.
Scientific Illustrator Angie Fox.
Research facility secretary Gail Littrell.
Public Programming and education specialists and all grant funded temporary
help in the exhibits hall are to be terminated.
A skeleton crew of 6 permanent administrative employees and the public
programs director will remain to handle all the research and public
outreach for the museum.
We were naturally appalled at this step to destroy the research activities
at the museum, but the news got worse. The Zoology and the Anthropology
Division collections were deemed of no national or state significance and
are to be dispersed under the proposed reduction. Anyone with any
experience with even a small museum collections can imagine the impact.
The Museum was created in 1871 by the state to hold collections in trust
for the citizens of the state of Nebraska. Museum personnel was not
consulted about any plans for elimination and we have still not been told
of any plan for the disposal of the collections. We have just been informed
that the staff (who between them have over 225 years of experience with the
collections) is to be fired. We were informed last week that there was
a "secret" study done concerning the Museum last fall. We have asked to
see a copy, but have received nothing at this time.
No one will be in place to manage the dispersal of the two collections.
Anyone who could sensitively and knowledgeably help is being fired.
This proposal is a problem on many levels. It seeks to fire 8 tenured
faculty members, all the collections managers - leave 4 collections intact
and the creation of four "museum specialists" to manage what is left, Vert.
Paleo. Botany, Parasitology and Entomology. The justisfication for the
firing is that the "program" i.e., the Research part of the state museum is
to be eliminated for either financial exigency or academic reasons. We
hear various reasons from various administrators. With the announcement of
the creation of the "museum specialist" positions, the elimination of
the "program" reason is discounted. We have still not received any
information such as job descriptions, pay levels or line levels on the
specialist positions although we were told on March 11 we would receive
them by March 14.
The insanity of the proposal for elimination of the collections continued
when we attempted to retrieve over 660 sensitive ethnographic items from
the display space in Morrill Hall on March 13 so they could be put in safe
storage in the Anthropology Division curation facility until the proposed
dispersal begins. We were told we cannot remove anything from display. We
were also sent a memo later the same day from the Vice Chancellor for
Research that we were not to contact any agency that we hold collections
for or any donors. Our interim director gave us permission the following
week to start removals, but we met resistance again on March 20. We were
asked to submit a list of items to be removed and give them a timeline. We
did last week and have heard nothing since.
My last date is June 30. The final announcement on the budget cuts is
sometime in the middle of June. Now, I ask you to imagine how the material
on display is going to be handled? Many of the items have been up for a
long enough period of time that they predate the professional managers in
my Division so there is no permanent recorded home in our collections
curation facility. Much needs to be done and archival storage containers
need to be purchased (on a non-existent budget) to assure safe conditions
for these items when they are taken off display. Prehistoric tools, ghost
dance shirts, moccasions, huipils, textiles, metalware, Turkish rugs, South
American religious festival masks, blowguns, Maasai shields, Maasai
feathered initiation collar, feather headdresses, painted muslin, bows,
arrows, pipe bags, parfleches, beaded bags and knife cases, kachinas,
looms, SW rugs and ceramics, the list goes on and on. There are at least
50 items on display that were loaned to us that need to be returned to the
lender that we are unable to remove. You are aware of the time consuming
chore of systematically moving things from the exhibit space in one
building into the storage space across campus.
I can speak for the Anthropology Division collections only. We have over
14000 ethnographic items from all continents, 250 countries and 1200
culture groups. We have 19,000 individually cataloged archaeological
specimens, 500,000 archaeological artifacts from 22 states. We hold
federal collections, we still have NAGPRA sensitive items still pending
consultation for notice publication and two large groups of human remains
that we are waiting to send home.
Needless to say, the problems created with this ill conceived Reduction in
Force proposal are rampant. We are deeply gratified that letters of support
are pouring in fast and furious since we started informing museum
professionals and researchers of this proposal. If anyone out there is at
all interested in writing letters of support for the Museum, you can
contact me at [log in to unmask] for addresses.
Thank you for your time.
Beth M. Wilkins
Collection Manager
Anthropology Division
University of Nebraska State Museum
Lincoln, Nebraska
Senior Lecturer
Museum Studies Program
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
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