Kudos Affiliates! May 2021

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Congratulations 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 Minnesota Historical Society announced the newest recipients of 30 Minnesota Historical and Cultural Heritage Small Grants including The Bakken Museum (Minneapolis, MN). The Museum received $9,994 to process the Earl Bakken Legacy Collection, allowing for greater public access to these resources. The Bakken Museum will also be a core research partner as part of a $1.5 million grant awarded to Binghamton University faculty. The grant will help improve makerspace learning for youth.

Frank Leta Honda has donated two new 2020 Honda Odyssey minivans to the Saint Louis Science Center (Saint Louis, MO) to transport Youth Exploring Science (YES) Program teens and Science Center educators to events during the summer as COVID-19 safety protocols allow. The YES Program was founded to help teens, particularly those from underserved communities, to recognize their potential in science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM) career fields.

Framingham State University (Framingham, MA) has been awarded a $62,250 grant from the Massachusetts Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) to coordinate a multi-day Racial Equity Policy Review Institute. Designed for up to 150 leaders within the campus community, participants will gain a better understanding of systemic racism in higher education and how it manifests on campus, be able to define what a racist policy is and how it shows up in student outcomes, and create an initial yearlong plan to undertake policy review.

History Colorado (Denver, CO), Hagley Museum (Wilmington, DE) and USS Constitution Museum  (Boston, MA) were among several Affiliates awarded humanity grants from The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Grant awards support the preservation of historic collections, humanities exhibitions and documentaries, scholarly research, and curriculum projects.

  • History Colorado was awarded a Media Projects Production grant for $310,536 to support the production of the Lost Highways Podcast series, an eight-episode offering focused on Colorado and Western history. History Colorado also received an Exhibitions-Implementation grant for $400,000 for The Sand Creek Massacre Exhibition. The permanent exhibition details the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre of Cheyenne and Arapaho tribal members.
  • Hagley Museum and Library ($194,400) and Center for Jewish History (New York, NY) ($153,292), each received a Fellowship Programs grant. The grants will support 12 months of stipend support for 1–3 fellowships per year for two to three years.
  • USS Constitution Museum will receive a Dialogues on the Experience of War grant for $96,264 to develop Sailors Speak: The Impact of War on Naval Veterans, their Families, and the Country. The award will be used for the training of facilitators to lead three discussion series for naval veterans and their families, based on historical documents and material culture from the War of 1812 and the post-9/11 wars.
  • City Lore (New York, NY) was awarded an Exhibitions-Planning grant for $75,000 to create a traveling exhibit about the 1970s Federal Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), that provided work for artists.
  • American Jewish Historical Society (New York City, NY), part of the Center for Jewish History, received $131,681 for a Humanities Collections and Reference Resources grant for The People’s Relief Committee Project to preserve and digitize materials that document the work of the People’s Relief Committee for Jewish War Sufferers (1915–1924), an American Jewish organization that sought to help Jewish communities and individuals in Europe during and after World War I.

The Rhode Island Historical Society (Providence, RI) received a donation of $50,000 from Walmart to pay for the creation of a curriculum to teach Black history and heritage in the local schools. The curriculum will include lesson plans, teacher training, and virtual learning tools.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

The Rockwell Museum (Corning, NY) announced Janelle Steiner, events coordinator, and Kate Swanson, interpretation and public engagement educator, have been selected to participate in The Museum Association of New York’s (MANY) “Building Capacity, Creating Sustainability, Growing Accessibility” program. The IMLS Cares Act grant project is designed to help museums impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic share their collections and reach audiences who cannot physically visit their museums. In this two-year program, museums will identify an event or project to deliver virtually to their audiences, focusing on developing programs from stories found in their collections that reveal cultural and racial diversity in their communities.

LEADERSHIP

Stephanie Haught Wade was named the new director of Historic Arkansas Museum (Little Rock, AR). Wade has been a historian with the Department of Arkansas Heritage since 2017, where she managed the Arkansas Historical Marker Program and was a member and administrator of the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commemoration Committee. She began work on April 5.

Kudos Affiliates!! March 2020

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

FUNDING

Springfield Museum of Art (Springfield, OH) received a $500,000 pledge from Speedway LLC to open its Art Invites capital campaign. The museum is now reaching out to the public to help bring in the final $1.2 million needed to fulfill the campaign goal. The funds raised will be used to tear down the oldest parts of the museum building, while increasing the educational space, which will double in size.

Mars Wrigley announced that the Forrest E. Mars, Jr. Chocolate History Research Grant is being awarded to five institutions across the U.S. and Canada in the areas of research and chocolate programming, including George Washington’s Mount Vernon (Mount Vernon, VA). The grant will be used to create professional development workshops and field trips designed to reach 40 teachers and 600 students in the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS). A unit entitled Chocolate and Trade: The Americas will be developed in collaboration with DCPS to support and enhance the current 6th grade social studies curriculum. Students will learn about the history of chocolate.

Citizens Bank of Kansas will provide scholarships to eight students to experience hands-on STEAM learning at a camp offered by the Cosmosphere (Hutchinson, KS). Scholarship winners will attend the Cosmosphere’s Mars Academy Camp, a four-day, three-night camp where students will focus on building a habitat for another world, understand and overcome the challenges of gathering resources necessary for life, and practice skills like operating robots and drones. The camp activities culminate in a team mission to orbit Earth. In addition, The MAAM Foundation is offering scholarships to qualifying students to attend the 2020 Cosmo Camps. These multi-day resident camps are focused on STEM-based educational experiences with a focus on aviation, aerospace, and space activities.

Framingham State University (Framingham. MA) was awarded $26,667 from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as part of the fiscal year 2020 Partnerships Matching Funds Program to improve trails in Ashland. The money will be used to replace a drainage pipe, regrade pathways and improve storm water runoff treatment.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded $750,000 over two-years to the Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, MI) for its landmark Artists + Residents program. Artists + Residents enlists national and international artists whose work centers on the complexities of Arab and Arab American representation and expression. Funds from the grant will be used to support residencies with a wide range of focuses and mediums and will include everything from artist talks and workshops to large-scale productions and exhibitions.

AWARDS & STAFF RECOGNITION

Robert C. Clark, President and CEO of Historic Annapolis, was awarded a 2020 Maryland Preservation Award in the Category of Outstanding Individual Leadership. Photo courtesy Historic Annapolis.

Historic Annapolis (Annapolis, MD) announced that Robert C. Clark, its President and CEO, was awarded a 2020 Maryland Preservation Award in the Category of Outstanding Individual Leadership. The Maryland Preservation Award Program, now in its 45th year, recognizes outstanding efforts in historic preservation, including education, restoration, and revitalization projects, as well as organizational and individual leadership. Mr. Clark was recognized for his effort in elevating the profile and visibility of historic preservation and cultural heritage programs in Annapolis.

The Senator John Heinz History Center (Pittsburgh, PA) received two awards at the annual Public Relations Society of America Pittsburgh Renaissance Awards.  Their submission for the successful #MoonBox campaign (implemented during the final month of Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission, an exhibition by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) won the first-place Renaissance Award for Best Social Media Campaign of 2019. They also won an Award of Merit (second place) for the entire Destination Moon exhibit integrated marketing campaign that helped draw more than 100,000 visitors to the History Center during the exhibit’s four-month run.

LEADERSHIP

Marta Mabel Pérez, has been appointed as the new Executive Director of the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (Santurce, Puerto Rico). Marta Mabel has been part of the MAPR’s team since 2005 when she founded, and managed for 12 years, the innovative Artist Assistance Program (PROA), a project of liaison with the artistic community in Puerto Rico. She recently served as the interim Executive Director for the museum.

The trustees of the Abbe Museum (Bar Harbor, ME) announced the selection of Christopher Newell as its new Executive Director and Senior Partner with Wabanaki Nations. Newell is a professional museum educator and a proud citizen of the Passamaquoddy Tribe. He has served since 2015 as Education Supervisor for the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center (also a Smithsonian Affiliate) where his team created educational experiences.

Kudos Affiliates!! October 2019

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Congratulations 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 City of Las Cruces’ recent exhibit “From the Vault” at the Las Cruces Museum of Art included pieces from the city’s museum system permanent art collection. Most of the pieces are by New Mexico artists.

The City of Las Cruces Museum System (Las Cruces, NM) as been awarded a $50,000 American Art Program grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to digitize the city’s permanent collection of southern New Mexico art. The project will increase the accessibility of the permanent art collection. The digital images and updated information about each piece of art will be made available to the public online. Additionally, a selection of three-dimensional objects will be mapped and reproduced using three-dimensional printing technology for a hands-on experience.

The National Endowment for the Humanities announced $29 million in awards for 215 humanities projects across the country including the following Affiliate projects:

History Colorado (Denver, CO): $168,167-Borderlands of Southern Colorado, a two one-week workshops for 72 K-12 educators on Colorado’s southern borderlands in the nineteenth century.

Plimoth Plantation (Plymouth, MA): $158,641-Beyond the Mayflower: New Voices from Early America, 1500–1670, a two-week summer institute for 25 K-12 educators on the evolution of indigenous-colonial relationships in seventeenth-century New England.

Michigan State University Museum (East Lansing, MI): $10,000-Michigan State University Museum Cultural Collections Rehousing Project, to purchase cabinets and preservation supplies to rehouse the University’s History, Folklife, and Anthropology collections, totaling some 100,000 objects.

Montana Historical Society (Helena, MT): $349,978-Upgrades to the mechanical system for Sustainable Preservation of Collections, an implementation project to adjust air-handling systems and install a building management system that would improve overall energy efficiency for preserving its collections.

High Desert Museum (Bend, OR): $8,653-Doris Swayze Bounds Collection Assessment, a preservation assessment of approximately 7,000 objects, which document many of the indigenous groups of the Columbia River Plateau, including the Colville, Yakama, Klamath, Nez Perce, and Umatilla tribes, over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

International Storytelling Center (Jonesborough, TN): $200,000-Freedom Stories: Unearthing the African-American Heritage of Appalachia, an implementation of a series of public discussions and an accompanying podcast and website that engage professional storytellers with humanities scholars to explore the history of African Americans in Appalachia.

The Center for Jewish History (New York, NY) was awarded the John Stedman Memorial Grant for its New York Historical Synagogues Map Website Enhancement Project. The New York Historical Synagogues Map is the first digital project dedicated to mapping all known synagogue locations in New York City in the early decades of the 20th century (1900-1939).

NMIH Vice Chairman Lee Butz introduced Pennsylvania Senator Pat Browne.

Kara Mohsinger, President and CEO of the National Museum of Industrial History (NMIH), Lee Butz, Vice Chair of the museum’s Board of Directors, and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Pat Browne announced a $500,000 state grant for the National Museum of Industrial History (Bethlehem, PA). The primary goal is to promote overnight stays in Pennsylvania by supporting events, developing marketing and public relations campaigns, funding facility enhancements, and supporting new construction. In addition, the grant will aid the museum in developing new exhibits, educating new generations about the nation’s industrial history, inspiring young inventors and entrepreneurs, and reaching audiences beyond the tri-state area.

Plimoth Plantation was awarded $14,925 from MassHumanities grant to fund a new exhibit commemorating the 400th anniversary of Mayflower’s arrival and showcase recent archaeological discoveries which are challenging traditional interpretations of Indigenous and Anglo-European relations in southeastern Massachusetts. The exhibit will incorporate ‘new’ voices from the past – not only those of the literate and privileged – to reveal face-to-face communities connected by written and oral covenants, spiritual and tribal rituals, diplomatic protocols, and daily exchange of trade goods and agricultural products.

Cape Fear Museum’s Science Cycle

The Cape Fear Museum (Wilmington, NC) received $5,000 from Science In Vivo and $2,000 from Corning to fund the project The Science Cycle. The mobile program is designed to inspire kids to be curious, think big and experiment by bringing science and hands-on activities to them in outdoor settings. The project was recently a runner up in the Falling Walls International Science Engagement Competition.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

The corn maze at Conner Prairie (Fishers, IN) has been recognized with the 2019 USA TODAY 10 Best Readers’ Choice award for Best Corn Maze. To celebrate the honor, Conner Prairie unveiled the design of the 2019 corn maze, which is sponsored by Corteva Agriscience and will open to the public on Sept. 21.

 

 

Congrats to the new class of Affiliate Visiting Professionals!

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(This is an excerpt of a longer article in the Spring 2019 edition of The Affiliate newsletter)

2018 class

The 2018 Visiting Professional class.

In October 2018, a group of 10 Affiliate colleagues from around the country convened in Washington, D.C., for a two-week, transformative experience at the Smithsonian. They were selected to participate in the Smithsonian Affiliations Visiting Professionals Program (VPP), a unique professional development opportunity for mid-level museum staff at Affiliate organizations. With generous support from The Getty Foundation, the cohort focused on a single topic — using digital technologies to broaden access to art collections — and added a leadership and personal development component to the curriculum.

Participants were selected from Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham, Alabama); Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles, California); Museum of Latin American Art (Long Beach, California); Museum of the African Diaspora (San Francisco, California); Peoria Riverfront Museum (Peoria, Illinois); Schingoethe Center of Aurora University (Romeoville, Illinois); Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, Michigan); American Jazz Museum (Kansas City, Missouri); The Rockwell Museum (Corning, New York); and Springfield Museum of Art (Springfeld, Ohio).

They represented various departments within their organizations and agreed that discussions about workplace challenges made a significant impact on them, especially since it’s often not the thrust of academic degrees. “The leadership piece was so important — how to build allies, how to communicate, managing change, even being a good follower,” mused Charles Woods, educator at Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. “My biggest takeaway was understanding that you can lead from wherever you are.”

People smiling at a table

The 2018 VPP class hard at work at the Smithsonian Affiliations office.

Each participant came to the VPP with a specific organizational objective. Aspirations were high for all participants, but the program taught the cohort how to take achievable action steps and think about iterating over time. “When I came, I had no idea what to expect,” said Erin Shapiro, curator at the Springfield Museum of Art. “But now, I think we have a high chance of success for our project. I don’t say that lightly. Everybody here recognizes that this will be beneficial. I feel fortunate to have participated. The Smithsonian Affiliations team did a fantastic job. It’s an important program.”

With the support of The Getty Foundation, Smithsonian Affiliations will host a second cohort in 2019. We’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate and welcome the 2019 class from the following Affiliate organizations:

Jewel Clark, Heard Museum (Phoenix, Arizona)

Susan Bolaños, Museum of Latin American Art (Long Beach, California)

Melanie Tran, California State Railroad Museum (Sacramento, California)

Melissa de Bie, History Colorado (Denver, Colorado)

Tasha Caswell, Connecticut Historical Society (Hartford, Connecticut)

Teresa Stenstrup, National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library (Cedar Rapids, Iowa)

Elizabeth Barrett Sullivan, Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, Michigan)

Kendra Newhall, Montana Historical Society (Helena, Montana)

Nicole Markham, International Tennis Hall of Fame (Newport, Rhode Island)

Katie Staib, Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture (Spokane, Washington)

Congratulations! We’re excited to meet them all and can’t wait for the collaboration to begin!

Kudos Affiliates! February 2019

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Congratulations 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 Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced $14.8 million in grants to support 253 humanities projects in 44 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. An additional $47.5 million was awarded to fund 55 state humanities council partners. The following Affiliates are included in the awards:

Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum (Chicago, IL): $178,961
Extending Zooniverse.org’s online platform to allow individual crowdsourcing project teams to review, compare, and edit transcriptions, and to work directly with raw text data generated from community transcription projects.

Michigan State University Museum (East Lansing, MI): $5,968
The purchase of two storage cabinets for a recently acquired collection of 433 items from Europe and the United States that were made or used by, or that represent, the Romani people.

Ohio History Connection (Columbus, OH) $6,000
The purchase of archival supplies to preserve the 800 dolls in the recently donated Lillian M. Bartok Doll Collection.

Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, Inc. (San Juan, Puerto Rico): $10,000
Development of a long-term preservation plan specific to the library and archives, physical relocation of collections, purchase of supplies, digital reformatting of VHS tapes, and preservation training for staff.

International Tennis Hall of Fame (Newport, RI): $6,000
A preservation assessment of a museum collection of approximately 30,000 artifacts housed in the historic Newport Casino, site of the first U.S. National Lawn Tennis Championship in 1881.

Fort Worth Museum of Science and History (Fort Worth, TX): $6,000
A preservation assessment of history, archival, and science collections related to Texas and the Southwest. The collections comprise more than 180,000 items, with emphasis on pre-Columbian, Native American, and ranch and agricultural life in Texas and the southwestern United States, as well as Fort Worth history.

Cape Fear Museum (Wilmington, NC) was awarded $3,000 from International Paper’s Riegelwood Mill and the International Paper Foundation. Funds will be used to enhance the Uplands Forest section of the Michael Jordan Discovery Gallery including hands-on, interactive components, construction materials, and print displays.

The Putnam Museum & Science Center (Davenport, IA) received a $200,000 endowment fund which will give the museum annual perpetual grants. From the estate of Louise Fidyke Potter McCarty-a grant of about $3,000 a year will be given to help support arts- and culture-related programs and projects.

AFL Telecommunications awarded a grant of $3,500 to The Children’s Museum of the Upstate location in Spartanburg, SC, to support after-school STEM education programs. The FIRST LEGO League program provides fourth through eighth graders the opportunity to learn more about science and engineering, and help spark an interest in STEM fields at a young age.

Springfield Museums (Springfield, MA) received $100,000 for literacy-based interactive exhibits in The Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum. The state grant will allow the museum to add several bilingual interactive exhibits.

Kay Simpson, president of the Springfield Museums, center, is joined by state legislators and representatives of the museums in praising a $100,000 state allocation for expansion of bilingual interactive exhibits for the Dr. Seuss Museum. (Peter Goonan / The Republican)

Bank of America presented $480,000 in grants to several nonprofits in the Philadelphia region in celebration of Giving Tuesday including $40,000 to the African American Museum in Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA).

Abbe Museum (Bar Harbor, ME) received a $10,000 Enterprise Grant from the Maine Office of Tourism. The funds will be used to expand the reach of the Abbe Museum Indian Market – both before and after the May event – contributing to the wider tourism goals of the region. Projects include a podcast and online press room.

RCB Bank is partnering with the Cosmosphere International Science Education Center & Space Museum (Hutchinson, KS) to award a ten camp scholarship to students in sixth through eighth grade to attend a Cosmosphere Camp this summer.

AWARDS AND RECOGNITION

The USS Constitution Museum (Charlestown, MA) has been selected to receive a pro bono consulting study by Harvard Business School Association of Boston’s Community Action Partners (CAP). The study is scheduled to begin this fall. For the past 18 months the USS Constitution Museum has been working with the National Park Service, U.S. Navy, and Waltham-based design firm Sasaki Partners on a plan to make the Charlestown Navy Yard experience more unified, engaging, and relevant. The CAP study will look at the museum’s proposal to move to the Hoosac Warehouse next to USS Constitution.

The Abbe Museum received an excellence in marketing award from the DownEast Acadia Tourism Association (DART) for its new Abbe Museum Indian Market. DART recognized the market as an important event for the region’s tourism and creative economies.

Hyperallergic revealed its’ Best of 2018: Top 20 Exhibitions Across the United States featuring Unsettled at the Anchorage Museum (Anchorage, AK).

Conner Prairie Interactive History Park (Fishers, IN) has been named a Site of Conscience by the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience. Conner Prairie is now one of more than 250 members across 65 countries to be honored for its high standards and initiatives to connect history to current events.

Kudos Affiliates! December 2018

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Congratulations 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 Mississippi River Museum received $5,000 from IBM to aid the development of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curriculum at the museum.

Midlands Community Foundation has awarded $89,175 to 24 nonprofit organizations serving Sarpy and Cass counties. Strategic Air Command & Aerospace Museum received $3,300.

The Knight Foundation announced the winners of the 2018 Knight Arts Challenge in Detroit. The Arab American National Museum was awarded $100,000 to support the Arab American Arts and Cultural Festival.

AWARDS AND RECOGNITION

Burns & McDonnell made a multiyear, multi-million-dollar commitment to Science City at Union Station Kansas City. Burns & McDonnell will invest $2.5-3 million over the next five years, bringing the total investment over the last decade to an excess of $8 million. The first phase of offerings include:

  • Burns & McDonnell Battle of the Brains: Commitment for two more K-12 STEM competitions, with each to result in a $1 million permanent exhibit inspired by area students.
  • Field Trip and Transportation Fund: For an entire school year, Burns & McDonnell will award one field trip per week for a class to experience Science City.
  • Pop-Up Series: Burns & McDonnell and Science City STEM professionals will be on-site to present insightful talks and demos for students.
  • Summer Camp: STEM professionals from Burns & McDonnell will enrich Science City’s summer camp with industry trends and innovations and share tips and insights regarding careers in STEM.
  • Internship: A Burns & McDonnell Battle of the Brains participant will be offered an internship to work at Burns & McDonnell or Science City.

LEADERSHIP

Jody Blankenship, CEO of the Connecticut Historical Society, has stepped down to take the job as president and CEO of the Indiana Historical Society. He will replace John Herbst, who served at the Indiana society’s helm for 12 years after leading Conner Prairie and the Indiana State Museum. Herbst is retiring at the end of the year, and Blankenship will take over Jan. 21.

The Newark Museum announced that Linda Harrison had been selected to succeed Steven Kern as director and chief executive officer. Ms. Harrison is coming from the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, where she has served as the director and chief executive since 2013. Ms. Harris will begin her new position in January 2019.