The University of Arizona
 

Year-End Update from Director Beth Grindell

June 2009

Beth Grindell

We recently have been saddened by the loss of two museum friends. 

Herb Elins passed away on April 12, 2009. A charter member, Herb was always among the first to offer financial support, time, and his presence to an ASM program. He volunteered in our collections division for a brief time with former curator Jan Bell. The last time I saw Herb was at our March lecture series on human evolution. Though he was moving a bit slower than usual, he was as charming, interested and engaged as ever. We're blessed to still have the love and support of his wife, Jane.

Art Staubitz passed away suddenly on May 28, 2009. A tireless advocate for ASM, Art, along with wife Linda, was a generous donor to The Pottery Project, a founding member of the Friends of the ASM Collections and an enthusiastic leader on the steering committee. Many of his fantastic program ideas will be enacted in the coming season. We look forward to Linda's return to Tucson in the fall.

July 8 marks a year since our popular and charismatic director, Hartman H. Lomawaima passed on after a long illness. He left a legacy of public commitment that we at ASM continue to work to fulfill. In the meantime, we deal with the politics of the state budget crisis as it affects Arizona’s entire precious cultural heritage. 

Last September we made the first of two state-mandated budget cuts and the second will become effective July 1, 2009.  Between them, ASM will loose over $400,000 in state funding and equivalent of 8 1/2 state-funded positions. How are we dealing with budget cuts?

  • The cash return was met through a combination of layoffs, attrition, transfer of positions to non-state funds, and 5% reductions in salary for most staff. 
  • We’ve reduced public hours, the galleries are not open on Sunday right now, the library and archives have reduced public hours.
  • We are scheduling fewer Saturday family programs this fall and we are not hosting Summer Solstice again until we can find underwriting for it.
  • We will be charging admission to galleries starting this year after we get the details worked out. 

ASM suffered another blow in February 2009, when the UA and City of Tucson agreed to suspend indefinitely ASM participation in Tucson’s downtown re-development project, Rio Nuevo. ASM staff had put five years of planning into this project. 

Despite this depressing litany many good things have happened. ASM has received several awards over the past year:

  • The summer 2008 Tucson Guide named ASM as the “most impressive” museum, notable for our many superlatives: oldest and largest anthropology museum in the Southwest, largest collection of southwestern pottery, rarest examples of Navajo weavings are just a few. 
  • In November, ASM was awarded the 2008 National Preservation Award for Collections Care presented jointly by the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC) and Heritage Preservation.  This award is a high honor— the Oscar in the field of collection care and preservation.
  • The January 2009 issue of Tucson Lifestyle magazine voted Arizona State Museum a winner in the BEST OF CITY 2009 competition in the "League of Their Own" category. "League of Their Own" winners are those that make Tucson unique. 

Museum staff members have received their share of awards, too. 

  • In December, The Hohokam Millennium, edited by ASM archaeologists, Suzanne Fish and Paul Fishwas named a top pick in the 2008 Southwest Books of the Year, sponsored by the Pima County Public Library.
  • In February, ASM’s zooarchaeologist Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman received the Provost's General Education Teaching Award for "exceptional efforts in teaching excellence in university general education." 
  • In March of this year, Conservator Nancy Odegaard received the 2009 Sheldon and Caroline Keck Award, which recognizes fellows and associates of the American Institute of Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works. Nancy was recognized especially for her role in creating the Heritage Conservation Science Program at the UA. 

We continue to prove the value of ASM programming:

  • The 2008 Four Corners Learning Expedition led by Chuck Adams and Rich Lange and the fall Hohokam World Learning Expedition led by Paul Fish and Suzanne Fish both netted very appreciative notes from participants. 
  • Confounding expectations, the 2009 Southwest Indian Art Fair hosted the largest turn out yet. Several thousand visitors and 185 artists shared a beautiful Tucson February weekend on the UA campus.  
  • In March, in recognition of Archaeology Awareness Month, ASM deviated a bit from our mission and presented a sold-out series of four lectures and workshops on the Ethiopian Australopithecine, Lucy, and her species. ASM Conservator Nancy Odegaard helped develop the appropriate packing case so that she could travel outside Ethiopia, well protected from potential damage to her 3 million-year-old bones. On workshop night everyone got into close-up examinations of human, non-human primates, and monkey skeletal casts, learning just what separates us from apes and monkeys. 
  • On April 4, ASM conservators hosted a sell-out basket care lecture and hands-on workshop.   

And life moves on. 

  • This year ASM seeks re-accreditation with the American Association of Museums, which we must do every ten years. We expect the process to be complete in the fall. 
  • The planning for Rio Nuevo is not all lost. Certain aspects of exhibit development and testing can continue even though we are not sure about final location. Our permanent exhibit Paths of Life is approaching 20 years old and we’ll want to replace it with new archaeological and ethnographic exhibits.
  • What will the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka ‘stimulus money’) mean for ASM?  At least two federal agencies will be putting funding into repatriation of several of our collections from tribal and Forest Service lands. We also hope to work with the UA and the state for some funding for building refurbishment.
  • We are dabbling in “social media,” including Facebook and blog applications for ASM.  Please tell us what you think.
  • The implementation of an entrance fee to visit our exhibit galleries will be a big initiative this year. We at ASM believe this puts a great responsibility on us to make sure we are offering exhibits and programs of interest to the public. Staff is working to develop feedback methods to help us gather this information. You may well be seeing a survey in your mailbox soon. I know they are an annoyance but I will very much appreciate your help on this. If the survey is too bothersome, please just send me an email.  We do want to know what you think.

As ever, it is your support and interest that keep us going.  Thank you!