Kudos Affiliates!! November 2023

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Kudos to these Affiliates on their recent accomplishments! Do you have kudos to share? Please send potential entries to Aaron Glavas, GlavasC@si.edu.

FUNDING

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded $76.4 million for the inaugural Global Centers Competition including University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Urbana-Champaign, IL) and partner institutions: University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (Boulder, CO) and Arizona State University. These collaborative research centers will apply best practices of broadening participation and community engagement to develop use-inspired research on climate change and clean energy. The centers will also create and promote opportunities for students and early-career researchers to gain education and training in world-class research while enhancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. Researchers will be supported by NSF up to $5 million over four to five years.

The Glen and Polly Barton Educational Endowment Fund donated $1 million to the Peoria Riverfront Museum (Peoria, IL) for the museum’s Every Student Initiative. The program brings Peoria Public School students to the museum to expand on topics outside of their classrooms.

Science Museum Oklahoma (Oklahoma City, OK) received a $1.5 million gift from the Chickasaw Nation to support a state-of-the art planetarium scheduled to open in 2024. The multimillion-dollar Love’s Planetarium will provide Oklahoma with an educational venue that will include an optical projector with a digital system that produces 9,500 bright stars and 56 nebulae and clusters for viewing as well as approximately 8 million detailed stars to recreate the Milky Way, all with high-intensity LEDs and fiber-optics. When it’s complete, the planetarium will be the only one of its kind with this combination of projection systems in the Western Hemisphere.

The National Park Service (NPS), in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), announced $25.7 million in Save America’s Treasures grants from the Historic Preservation Fund to preserve nationally significant sites and collections. Preservation projects receiving a Save America’s Treasures grant from NPS include:

Collections projects receiving a Save America’s Treasures grant from IMLS include:

  • Plimoth Patuxet Museums (Plymouth, MA) ($163,680) to support Preserving Mayflower II: A Project to Ensure the Longevity of a National Icon
  • YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (New York, NY) ($224,007) for the preservation and access of unique historical documents and photographs of the Jewish Labor and Political Archives.
  • Buffalo Bill Center of the West (Cody, WY) ($750,000) to improve and remodel collections storage spaces at the center.

International Museum of Art & Science (McAllen, TX) received three grant awards from the Texas Commission on the Arts for the 2023-24 fiscal year in the following categories:

  • $3,500 – Arts Respond – Public Safety and Criminal Justice– to support Screen It: Youth Identity Through Art which brings at-risk teens and working artists together to learn about the process of screen printing, culminating in a public exhibition.
  • $11,000 – A two-year Arts Create award to advance the creative economy of Texas by investing in the operations of the museum.
  • $74,924 – Cultural District Project award to support Destination McAllen: Art, Culture, IMAS which will attract tourists with public art and high-quality artistic videos featuring McAllen’s Cultural District.

The National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium (Dubuque, IA) received $8,000 in funding from the City of Dubuque’s Arts and Cultural Affairs grant program to support a special 20th-Anniversary exhibit at the museum.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

UNESCO World Heritage Committee added Ohio’s Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks as the United States’ 25th addition to the World Heritage List. The Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, which includes five locations managed by the National Park Service and three managed by the Ohio History Connection (Columbus, OH), were built by Native Americans between 1,600 and 2,000 years ago.

The Dubuque County Historical Society, which operates the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium and the Mathias Ham Historic Site, has been awarded a Top Workplaces 2023 honor by Iowa Top Workplaces.

Jose Santamaria, former executive director of Tellus Science Museum (Cartersville, GA), was recognized with the Entwisle Award for Lifetime Service in Tourism by Only in Cartersville Bartow Tourism.

Mr. William D. “Bill” Welge, Archivist, Historian, and Author, and former Research Division Director of the Oklahoma Historical Society (Oklahoma City, OK) was inducted into the Oklahoma Historian’s Hall of Fame in March 2023.  His service spanned nearly 44 years beginning in 1977. The OHS archives were renamed the “William D. Welge Archival Collections,” in his honor.

LEADERSHIP

Jose Santamaria announced he will be moving from his executive director position of the Tellus Science Museum to part-time director emeritus. Tellus’ director of development, Adam Wade assumed the executive director role, effective October 1.

Putnam Museum and Science Center (Davenport, IA) President/CEO Rachael Mullins will retire in June 2024. She plans to relocate to the Atlanta area to be closer to family and assist in caring for her mother. A search committee will conduct a professional search to place a new president/CEO by June 1, 2024.

Kudos Affiliates!! October 2023

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Kudos to these Affiliates on their recent accomplishments! Do you have kudos to share? Please send potential entries to Aaron Glavas, GlavasC@si.edu.

FUNDING

Montana Historical Society (Helena, MT) Director Molly Kruckenberg announced that Montana native Norm Asbjornson has donated $10.4 million for the construction of the new Montana Heritage Center. The donation completes the historical society’s goal of raising $18.8 million for enhancements to the museum’s galleries.

The Denver Museum of Nature & Science (Denver, CO) announced it has been awarded the largest research grant in its history. The collaborative research grant from the National Science Foundation’s Frontier Research in Earth Sciences program totals nearly $3 million. The five-year project will be led by museum’s curator of vertebrate paleontology Dr. Tyler Lyson, to help researchers understand the evolution of many modern plants and animals, as well as provide insights into the biodiversity crisis currently facing the planet, as ancient extinctions can teach about the extinctions happening today.

The Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan and its supporting organizations provided Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS) $100,000 for the Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, MI) and its neighborhood touring program, which explores local communities and their contributions to the region.

Ohio History Connection (Columbus, OH) received a $98,753 grant from the National Park Service to fund the consultation and documentation projects, such as staff travel, consultation meetings and research to support the repatriation process as part of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

The Board of Directors of the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) announced the appointment of six new accreditation commissioners including Norman Burns, President and CEO, Conner Prairie (Fishers, IN).

Kristin Glomstad-Yoon, curator of historic collections for the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium (Dubuque, IA), is one of two recipients of this year’s the Iowa Museum Association Rising Star Award. The award recognizes people who have worked or volunteered in the Iowa museum field for 3-5 years and have helped their museum broaden its audience through engagement activities.

LEADERSHIP

Rashida Phillips, executive director at the American Jazz Museum (Kansas City, MO) since 2020, is leaving her post to pursue other interests. The museum’s board of directors announced that ethnomusicologist Dina Bennett has been named the museum’s interim executive director, effective Aug. 19.

Kudos Affiliates!! September 2023

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Kudos to these Affiliates on their recent accomplishments! Do you have kudos to share? Please send potential entries to Aaron Glavas, GlavasC@si.edu.

FUNDING

Michigan Science Center (Detroit, MI) has been awarded nearly $800,000 over three years from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), as part of NASA’s Next Generation STEM initiative. Called NASA’s TEAM II Program, the initiative aims to highlight space and STEM and bring the excitement of space science to communities.

Morris Museum (Morristown, NJ) received a $222,320 grant from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts to support key initiatives in economic and community development, arts education and lifelong learning, artist services and equity and access.

Fort Worth Museum of Science and History (Fort Worth, TX) was awarded funding from the North Texas Community Foundation through the Fund to Advance Racial Equity. The grant will support exhibitions at the museum that address achieving a more equitable community.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services awarded Museum Grants for African American History and Culture (AAHC) to the following Affiliates:

  • The African American Museum in Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA) ($308,000) to research, design and install a permanent, interactive exhibition telling a more comprehensive history of African Americans. Guided by historical research, expert consultants along with focus group input will inform the development of new content and the selection of artifacts. A curriculum guide for middle-school students will be created for the School District of Philadelphia during school time and the Free Library of Philadelphia for out-of-school time.
  • The National Jazz Museum in Harlem (New York, NY) ($99,935) to diversify and attract new audiences through an online video series highlighting jazz as a uniquely American art form by examining jazz in relationship to place, society, and history. The video series will help visitors gain a deeper understanding of the musical and cultural impact of jazz and its musicians with a focus on the lives of the jazz greats who called and continue to call Harlem their home.
  • Museum of the African Diaspora (San Francisco, CA) ($500,000) to expand its visual literacy and arts program to provide free classes and museum visits for over 2,900 third- and fourth-grade students from Title I schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Museum will partner with the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) to host workshops, a student literacy and art project, and a showcase of student work.

Also, the Institute of Museum and Library Services awarded grants through Museums for America, and its special initiatives, Museums Empowered and Inspire! Grants for Small Museums. Museums for America supports projects that strengthen the ability of individual museums to benefit the public by providing high-quality, inclusive learning experiences, maximizing resources to address community needs through partnerships and collaborations, and by preserving and providing access to the collections entrusted to their care. These Affiliate projects were funded through this year’s cycle:

  • Wisconsin Veterans Museum (Madison, WI) ($66,371) to digitize and catalog post-Civil War through World War I still images from its collection, including photographs, scrapbooks, charcoal and pastel portraits, and other images.
  • Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture (Seattle, WA) ($218,146) to catalog and rehouse approximately 9,000 paleobotanical specimens in the collection, including fossil leaves, flowers, seeds, fruits, wood, plant microfossils, and fossil insects, and will undertake data cleanup of approximately 20,000 specimens. Staff will also build new and strengthen existing relationships with regional Tribes through engagement and consultation focused on learning and knowledge sharing of Washington State’s paleontological resources.
  • Museum of the Rockies (Bozeman, MT) ($236,240) to design and launch Discover Science!, a paleontology education initiative that will immerse visitors in processes of scientific inquiry of 71-82 million year old prehistoric environments by engaging them with paleontology specimens. Project activities will include producing K-12 curriculum, developing teacher training programs to be offered virtually and in person, and offering a Pop Up Museum service that will include outreach kits for classrooms and a traveling museum educator.
  • Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience (Seattle, WA) ($249,964) to partner with community service organizations and a neighborhood community advisory committee to provide arts and cultural programs centered on health and well-being for its diverse Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities, the general public, and youth audiences. Informed by recent community surveys, the museum will develop summer arts and music festival events, as well as host two year-long artist residencies to support twenty community clinic-based cultural programs. The museum will also implement an arts training program in which two paid interns are paired with professional artists to work with youth participants to create an art installation.
  • Cincinnati Museum Center (Cincinnati, OH) ($249,685) to develop and design a new permanent exhibition, the Indigenous Peoples Gallery, which will explore the Greater Cincinnati region’s long history of human habitation, from the earliest Native American societies to the Tribal Nations that still call the central Ohio Valley home. This project will build on relationships with seventeen federally recognized Tribal Nations, established through the museum’s ongoing Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) work. Using an interdisciplinary approach and inclusive lens, the Indigenous Peoples Gallery will center and share Indigenous perspectives, feature appropriate cultural resources stewarded by the museum, and communicate the message that Indigenous cultures live and thrive in the Greater Cincinnati today.
  • Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History (Philadelphia, PA) ($159,028) to prototype a new methodology for its core exhibition. Using a model that encourages visitors to interact, the exhibition will share the experience of America’s Jewish community and inform the visitor’s thinking about the key values and challenges of a pluralistic society. Project activities will include creating a prototype that models one section of the new design, and testing the prototype at two locations with key target audiences of Jewish Philadelphians, non-Jewish Philadelphians, and national tourists.
  • San Diego Air & Space Museum (San Diego, CA) $250,000 to improve its collection care processes and digital asset management for its collection of artifacts related to air and space history and technology. This project will enable the museum to implement a new integrated Collections Management System (CMS) across all its collections.

Museums Empowered: Professional Development Opportunities for Museum Staff is a special initiative of the Museums for America grant program supporting staff capacity-building projects that use professional development to generate systemic change within a museum.

  • Museum of Us (San Diego, CA) ($249,393) to conduct an internal capacity-building project by offering an assortment of training and professional development opportunities. Project activities include conducting cultural competence training for the museum staff and board; conducting de-escalation training for forward-facing staff; offering ongoing professional development opportunities for staff; recruiting Indigenous staff, trustees, fellows, and partners; implementing a fellowship program; and auditing the employee handbook.
  • Perot Museum of Nature and Science (Dallas, TX) ($209,711) to develop a leadership professional development program to attract talent and help grow the next generation of museum leaders. The program consists of four training categories: a core values academy where participants will learn how to lead with clarity, confidence, and connection; leadership training that develops curious leaders; crucial conversations for mastering dialogue training that helps leaders develop dialogue skills to have important conversations in the moment; and crucial conversations for accountability training that prioritizes the person and not the process through candid coaching, identifying goals, and supporting professional development.

Inspire! Grants for Small Museums, a special initiative of the Museums for America grant program, was designed to reduce the application burden on small museums and help them address priorities identified in their strategic plans.

  • Dennos Museum Center (Traverse City, MI) ($10,110) to conduct a conservation survey of its outdoor sculpture collection. Informed by a Collections Assessment for Preservation (CAP) report, museum staff will work with a conservator to create a plan for object-by-object conservation care. The survey will address the environmental damage of the outdoor sculptures and help the museum staff develop a long-term maintenance and repair plan, organized by highest conservation priorities.
  • International Museum of Art and Science (McAllen, TX) ($37,398) to improve collection stewardship and accessibility for approximately 5,600 works of Mexican and Latin American folk art in its collection. Local and national project advisors will inform research activities and assist staff in reviewing Spanish and English text translations related to the objects. 

U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee passed a bill that allocates $116,000 for the New Mexico Museum of Space History (Alamogordo, NM) to photograph and catalog its object collection and archival records, which will be made accessible on their website.

The Dr. Samuel D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry (Baltimore, MD), and the University of Maryland School of Dentistry (UMSOD) Department of Dental Public Health (DPH) received a five-year $1.28 million Science Education Partnership Award grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences to design innovative online tools that will redefine how young learners are taught about oral health across the country. Entitled A Mouthful of History, the project will provide accessible and easily disseminated online educational modules that combine the health sciences, science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM), and the humanities to create a scaffolded learning experience that starts with Pre-K learners and continues with them until 12th grade.

AWARDS AND RECOGNITION

The American Alliance of Museums (AAM) announced 27 reaccreditation awards made at the 2023 meeting of the Accreditation Commission, which featured the following Affiliates:

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Kudos Affiliates!!! Summer 2023

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Kudos to these Affiliates on their recent accomplishments! Do you have kudos to share? Please send potential entries to Aaron Glavas, GlavasC@si.edu.

FUNDING

Nissan Foundation awarded $1.2 million to 39 nonprofits, including four Affiliates, that share and celebrate diverse cultural perspectives, experiences, and voices to communities across the country. The grant recipients are based in communities surrounding Nissan facilities in Southern California, Middle Tennessee, Central Mississippi, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Southeast Michigan, New York City, and Atlanta including:

  • The Museum of Us (San Diego, CA) ($15,000) – to offer Race: Are We So Different workshops.

University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (Boulder, CO) wwill receive $91.8 million in funding spread out over the next five years from the National Science Foundation, all of which will go towards designing and building the first Airborne Phase Array Radar (APAR) system for meteorology use. APAR will be looking at the atmosphere at higher resolutions and looking more deeply into clouds and thunderstorms with dual polarization capabilities, which means APAR will be able to differentiate between snowflakes, rain and ice crystals whereas other radars implemented in the past could not, providing a clearer understanding of a storm’s microphysical properties.

Putnam Museum and Science Center (Davenport, IA) received $50,000 from Scott County Regional Authority as part of the spring 2023 grant cycle. The funding will support the Putnam Reimagined strategic initiative.

The National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium (Dubuque, IA) has been awarded $20,000 in operational support as part of the Cultural Leadership Partners (CLP) from the Iowa Arts Council. Funding for fiscal year 2024 will support the Museum’s Interpretive Planning Pre-Work Assessment to gain an increased understanding of visitor knowledge, behaviors, and attitudes, reflect community need and connectivity, inform evaluation practices to best serve community, and creatively integrate the goals of both historic and living collections in exhibits and programs. Funding will also support the Museum’s diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion (DEAI) initiatives and service trainings to provide DEAI-forward solutions to ensure an inclusive visitor experience.

Plimoth Patuxet Museums (Plymouth, MA) announced a $10,000 donation from the Rotary Club of Plymouth in support of its Indigenous Program Building Project that will enable staff to better tell the compelling story of profound change and cultural persistence in the Indigenous homeland in this region.

Dubuque City Council approved a recommendation from the city’s Arts and Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission to allocate a $21,846 operating support grant fund to the Dubuque Museum of Art (Dubuque, IA). In addition, the Commission approved an $8,000 special projects grant to expand the 20-year celebration of the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium (Dubuque, IA) by helping fund a new initiative that will bring in experts to add perspective on the impacts of immigration and systemic racism, as well as environmental impacts, in the community.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

Made By Us, an alliance of more than 150 historic sites and museums joining forces to share history, announced the appointment of three distinguished history leaders to its Board of Directors including Norman Burns, President and CEO of Conner Prairie (Fishers, IN) and Natalia Crujeiras, CEO and Executive Director of HistoryMiami Museum (Miami, FL).

Senator John Heinz History Center (Pittsburgh, PA) was voted Pittsburgh Magazine 2023 Readers’ Entertainment & Leisure Museum Poll winner.

The American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) announced History Colorado (Denver, CO), as one of three winners of the History in Progress Award. History Colorado was recognized for the exhibition The Sand Creek Massacre: The Betrayal that Changed Cheyenne and Arapaho People Forever. This exhibit explores the deadliest day in Colorado history, when an 1864 assault by U.S. troops killed more than 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho people, wiped out their tribal leadership, and resulted in them being forcefully expelled from their homelands forever. This project worked to repair relationships and trust between the museum and tribes, foregrounded the voices of Native people in this tragedy, and shared the experiences and enduring cultures of the state’s original landkeepers.

AASLH also presented the Award of Excellence to recognize excellence for projects (including civic engagement, special projects, educational programs, exhibits, publications, etc.), and individual lifetime achievement:

  • History Colorado (Denver, CO) – The Sand Creek Massacre: The Betrayal That Changed Cheyenne and Arapaho People Forever

The East Tennessee Historical Society’s recently presented their Awards of Excellence program recognizing individuals and organizations for significant contributions to the preservation, promotion, and interpretation of the region’s history:

Community History Leadership Awards

Teaching Excellence Awards

Project Excellence Awards

Lifetime Achievement Awards

LEADERSHIP

The National Museum of Nuclear Science & History (Albuquerque, NM) Board of Trustees announced Jennifer J. Hayden has been named president and chief executive officer. Hayden succeeds Jim Walther, who was executive director of the Nuclear Museum for 26 years. Walther retired in March of 2023.

Leon Natker has been named the next director of the Oklahoma History Center (Oklahoma City, OK). He previously worked as the director for institutional advancement at the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City.

Kudos Affiliates!! May 2023

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Kudos to these Affiliates on their recent accomplishments! Do you have kudos to share? Please send potential entries to Aaron Glavas, GlavasC@si.edu. 

FUNDING  

MakerUSA, in collaboration with the Pinhead Institute (Telluride, CO), has received a $100,000 grant to fund a program manager to design and operate “maker” programming regionally. The grant will cover the costs of a program manager, as well as an $8,000 sub-grant that will go directly to Pinhead to develop programming. 

The Arvest Foundation announced a $2,500 contribution to the Oklahoma Historical Society (Oklahoma City, OK) to support digitization and preservation of oral interviews of veterans who served in WWII and beyond. The interviews were conducted and recorded in the 1980s through the 1990s using technology that is deteriorating. 

The California Natural Resources Agency announced more than $19.7 million in funding awarded by the California Cultural and Historical Endowment to support 63 museum projects including: 

New Mexico’s Governor approved $100,000 in capital funding to provide, improve, and enhance exhibits and programs at the New Mexico Museum of Space History (Alamogordo, NM). 

AWARDS & RECOGNITION 

Neville Crenshaw, manager of special exhibitions and featured experiences at the Saint Louis Science Center (Saint Louis, MO), and the Center’s team were awarded the Mission Moment 2022 award from MindsEye, a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving people of all ages with visual disabilities in the St. Louis region. The award recognized the work from the team to make 2022’s HOCKEY: Faster Than Ever special exhibition more accessible for guests who are blind or partially sighted. 

The American Alliance of Museums (AAM) announced the reaccreditation awards for 2023, which included three Smithsonian Affiliates: 

Aquarium of the Bay (San Francisco, CA) received reaccreditation for 2023 through 2028 by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). 

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) announced 30 finalists, including three Affiliates, for the 2023 National Medal for Museum and Library Service. The National Medal is the nation’s highest honor given to museums and libraries that demonstrate excellence in service to their communities. 

A collaboration between Nebraska Public Media Labs and the University of Nebraska State Museum (Lincoln, NE), Expedition Nebraska: A Virtual Natural History Experience has been honored for Metaverse, Immersive and Virtual Experiences in the 27th Annual Webby Awards. The project allows visitors to virtually travel back in time to prehistoric Nebraska and experience how it has changed over millennia. The Webby Awards, presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, is the leading international awards organization honoring excellence on the internet. 

Senator John Heinz History Center (Pittsburgh, PA) received the S.K. Stevens Award from the Pennsylvania Museums Association for its work on the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Services (SITES) exhibition American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faith.

The National Art Education Association has named Miriam Machado, director of education at the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum (Miami, FL) as the recipient of the 2023 National Museum Education Art Educator Award. This prestigious award, determined through a peer review of nominations, recognizes the exemplary contributions, service, and achievements of one outstanding NAEA member annually at the National level within their division.

LEADERSHIP 

Pamela D.C. Junior, director of the Two Mississippi Museums (Jackson, MS) announced her plans to retire. She has led the Two Mississippi Museums, which consists of the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, since 2019. Junior’s retirement is effective June 30. 

Kenosha Public Museums’ (Kenosha, WI) director Leslie Brother has resigned. Peggy Gregorski has been named interim director while a national search is conducted.