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:

• Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles, CA) ($40,000) – to support family festivals and school visits programs.

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

• Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, MI) ($30,000) – to support the museum’s 2023-24 public and educational programming series.

• Two Mississippi Museums, part of the Mississippi Department of Archives & History (Jackson, MS) ($50,000) – to subsidize Two Mississippi Museums school visits program.

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:

• California African American Museum (Los Angeles, CA) – Rights & Rituals: The Making of African American Debutante Culture

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

• Orange County Regional History Center (Orlando, FL) – Figurehead: Music & Mayhem in Orlando’s Underground 

• Montana Historical Society (Helena, MT) – Montana: A History of Our Home

• Greensboro History Museum (Greensboro, NC) – NC Democracy: Eleven Elections

• Culture & Heritage Museums of York County (Rock Hill, SC) – SC Liberty and Resistance: Reconstruction and the African American Community at Brattonsville 1865-1877

• Irving Archives and Museum (Irving, TX) and the Irving Black Arts Council – The Local Green Book Project 

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

• Birthplace of Country Music Museum (Bristol, VA)

Teaching Excellence Awards

• Dr. Rene Rodgers, Head Curator, Birthplace of Country Music Museum – museum-based lesson plans project.

Project Excellence Awards

• Birthplace of Country Music Museum – 95th Anniversary of the 1927 Bristol Sessions programming project.

• Museum Center at 5ive Points (Cleveland, TN) – Bendabout Farms: A History Worth Sharing exhibition and programs

Lifetime Achievement Awards

• Leah Ross, Executive Director of Advancement, Birthplace of Country Music

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.