Tag Archive for: oklahoma history center

Kudos Affiliates!!! Summer 2023

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!! February 2023

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

New Hanover County leaders announced Cape Fear Museum (Wilmington, NC) was one of the first round of grant recipients from a $1.25 billion community endowment. The museum was awarded $17,000 to support STEM programs.

Philadelphia City Council approved a midyear budget transfer of $3 million to African American Museum in Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA) to support museum operations.

New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science (Albuquerque, NM) has partnered with Meta. The museum board voted unanimously to approve Meta’s proposal to grant the company the naming rights for the Space Sciences wing of the museum, including the planetarium, for a period of five years. In return, Meta will provide the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science Foundation with a $300,000 grant, which will go toward expanding educational programming.

History Colorado (Denver, CO) was awarded $74,998 from the National Park Service as part of their Underrepresented Community Grants. History Colorado will fund a statewide survey of Green Book sites in Colorado, as well as to nominating one such location to both the National and State Registers of Historic Places. In addition, History Colorado recieved $40,000 from the Colorado Tourism Office to support the growth of the motor tour coach market through the promotion of diverse experiences and cultures in the American West.

Duke Energy has donated $20,000 to the White River Alliance to boost the nonprofit’s efforts to improve and protect water resources throughout central Indiana. Duke Energy’s support will fund the installation of two new White River Art Canoes, one near Duke Energy’s substation and the other at Conner Prairie (Fishers, IN) to raise awareness of the importance of the White River to the local economy and the quality of life for area residents. The donation is also supporting the planting of trees at Conner Prairie near the 3.3 miles of river that run through its property.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

Association of African American Museums announced the particpants and advisors for their Mellon Funded Working Group. Samuel W. Black, Director, African American Program, Senator John Heinz History Center (Pittsburgh, PA) and Dr. Jacqueline Hudson, Exhibitions Content Developer, National Underground Railroad Freedom Center (Cincinnati, OH) were named participants. Dr. Dina Bennett, Director of Collections and Curatorial Affairs, American Jazz Museum (Kansas City, MO) was appointed advisor.

Antonio J. Busalacchi, President, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) (Boulder, CO), has been named an honorary member and fellow of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG).

LEADERSHIP

Dan Provo, Director of Oklahoma History Center (Oklahoma City, OK) announced he is retiring from his position effective January 30, 2023. Jeff Briley has been named interim director.

Bishop Museum of Science and Nature (Bradenton, FL) announced that Mr. Andrew M. Sandall has been appointed the new CEO of the Museum. Most recently, Sandall has been the executive director of the Morris Museum (Morristown, NJ). Mr. Sandall will succeed interim CEO Charles Zajaczkowski and assume his new responsibilities on March 6, 2023.

The Long Island Museum (Stony Brook, NY) announced that Sarah Abruzzi and Joshua Ruff have been appointed to the joint role of co-executive directors of the museum. Neil Watson, former executive director of the LIM, retired on October 7 after nine years of leadership.

Kudos Affiliates!! March 2021

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 Friends of the Oklahoma History Center (Oklahoma City, OK) received a $35,000 grant from Inasmuch Foundation for the digitization of its scholarly journal, The Chronicles of Oklahoma. The funding will pay staff to process digitized issues of The Chronicles of Oklahoma to give patrons the ability to download or print individual articles, book reviews, meeting minutes, or other specific content from each issue. 

Dubuque Museum of Art (Dubuque, IA) will receive a percentage of more than $18,000 raised by the Home+FloorShow 2020 Community Holiday Event. The funds will support general operating expenses.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation named Florida International University (Miami, FL) and Mystic Seaport Museum (Mystic, CT) among the winners of its Just Futures Initiative. The Initiative supports teams of scholars who are studying past periods of crisis and disruption in order to lead us to cultural and social transformation.

  • Florida International University was awarded a $4.6 million grant for the project-Race, Risk, and Resilience: Building a Local-to-Global “Commons for Justice.” South Florida residents are vulnerable to extreme weather, but because of deep inequities in pre- and post-event resources, minority neighborhoods are particularly disaster prone. The Commons for Justice will identify the most urgent exposure problems for communities of color and provide resilience options as well as collect and preserve coping stories from those who live in at-risk neighborhoods.
  • With the $4.9 million grant, Brown University’s Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice will partner with Mystic Seaport Museum and Williams College for the project Reimaging New England Histories: Historical Injustice, Sovereignty and Freedom. The collaborators will use maritime history as a basis for studying historical injustices and generating new insights on the relationship between European colonization in North America, the dispossession of Native American land, and racial slavery in New England. 

Facebook will sponsor the new Current Science Studio at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History (Fort Worth, TX) with a $255,000 grant. The exhibit will link science with current events like the upcoming Mars rover landing, tracking hurricanes, or marking Covid-19 cases worldwide. 

Western Reserve Historical Society (Cleveland, OH) received $750,000 from the state of Ohio to continue capital improvements to the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum’s lower gallery and collection storage areas.

The Rhode Island Historical Society (Providence, RI) received a $25,000 grant as part of Rhode Island Commerce state’s hospitality, arts, and tourism (HArT) relief program.  Staff will upgrade technology to produce virtual tours, events, educational programs, and other public programs.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

Marsha MacDowell, Curator of Folk Arts and Quilt Studies at the Michigan State University Museum (East Lansing, MI), was named the 2020 recipient of the American Folklore Society’s Benjamin A. Botkin Prize for significant lifetime achievement in the field of public folklore.

LEADERSHIP

Peter Seibert, Executive Director and CEO of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West (Cody, WY), announced his resignation to become the new Director of the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia.

Kudos Affiliates!! October 2020

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 Durham Museum (Omaha, NE) received a $25,000 grant from The Iowa West Foundation to develop resources, programs, and projects that focus on economic development, education, place making, and healthy families.

The Nissan Foundation awarded $680,000 in grants to 27 nonprofit organizations for its 2020 grant cycle including awards to:

The NASA in Kansas program received a $2.8 million grant to help continue STEM-based education and research in the Sunflower State. The four-year award from NASA will help fund a consortium of universities and science museums, including the Cosmosphere (Hutchinson, KS).

The International Museum of Art and Science (McAllen, TX) was awarded a Collections Assessment for Preservation grant for $7,000 from the Foundation for the Advancement in Conservation. The funding will be instrumental in providing credible information for long-term planning for collections care and preparing for re-accreditation in 2022.

Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission awarded grants to the following Affiliate organizations to support the general operations of the museums:

Putnam Museum and Science Center (Davenport, IA) received a $20,000 Cultural Leadership Partners grant administered by the Iowa Arts Council, a division of the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs. The grant will support a wide range of programs and events the Museum and Science Center will provide in the coming year.

New Mexico’s legislative session concluded with a $250,000 allocation for renovations at the Hubbard Museum of the American West (Ruidoso Downs, NM) and $750,000 to the New Mexico Museum of Space History (Alamogordo, NM) for facility and exhibit improvements.

The National Park Service, in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, announced $12,800,000 in Save America’s Treasures grants to fund 42 preservation and conservation projects in 26 states including the following Affiliates:

  • Mystic Seaport Museum (Mystic, CT) – $102,000-for the preservation and accessibility to curatorial files.
  • YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (Center for Jewish History), (New York, NY) – $119,433-for the preservation and accessibility for Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services awarded grants totaling $25,899,000 for museums across the nation to improve services to their communities through Museums for America, and special initiatives-Museums Empowered and Inspire! Grants for Small Museums. Affiliate awardees include:

Museums for America

  • Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, MI) – $172,000.00-The Arab American National Museum will work with a learning design firm and a museum-focused exhibition design firm to develop, design, and fabricate new components for their children’s gallery spaces. This project will result in four new bilingual, less text-heavy exhibition elements that will allow young visitors in grades K-5 to gain a more balanced perspective on cultural and racial diversity within their communities, as well as an appreciation of the large-scale impact of all immigrant communities on American life.
  • Springfield Science Museum, part of Springfield Museums, (Springfield, MA) – $84,637.00-Museum staff will undergo Disability Inclusion and Universal Design training to redesign and enhance a core multi-use learning space and principle STEM program that can remove physical, cognitive, and social barriers to learning. External evaluators will measure access needs and learning outcomes before and after project upgrades in order to track progress and develop a scalable model of inclusive practice for all the museum’s science programming.
  • Mercer Museum (Doylestown, PA) – $40,000.00-Mercer Museum will conduct a detailed condition survey of 256 windows (including dormers and skylights) located in its original 1916 National Landmark Mercer Museum building. The survey will result in a comprehensive report, with recommendations and methodologies for repair and remediation intended to improve environmental conditions for the exhibited collections.
  • Arizona State Museum (Tucson, AZ) – $122,471.00-The Arizona State Museum will ensure the long-term preservation and accessibility of 50 items including large, handcrafted barkcloth fabrics and woven basketry mats from Indigenous groups in northern Mexico (Pima Bajo, Pipil, Tarahuamara, Tepehuan, Warhio, Yaqui, Tohono O’odham, and Otomi) and the Pacific Islands (Fijian, Hawaiian, Javanese, Melanesian, Philippine, Samoan, and Tongan).
  • Museum of Us (San Diego, CA ) – $249,668.00-The Museum of Us will engage with representatives of the Kumeyaay Nation (Kumeyaay) in a community-driven exhibit and program development process. This project will engage Kumeyaay community members in large forums, focus groups, one-on-one meetings, and written evaluations to accurately capture content for a new exhibit that is self-determined by the community.
  • Adler Planetarium (Chicago, IL) – $248,825.00-The Adler Planetarium will expand access to STEM programs for African American and Latinx Chicago teens through a progressive series of entry-point, introductory, intermediate, and advanced level programs. Students in grades 7-12 will be invited to join teams of scientists, engineers, and educators to undertake authentic scientific research and solve real engineering challenges. In collaboration with schools and community-based organizations, Adler will develop and implement new participant recruitment and retention strategies to reach teens in specific neighborhoods.
  • South Carolina State Museum (Columbia, SC) – $245,239.00-The South Carolina State Museum will improve the stewardship of its collections through a two-year collections inventory and digitization project. The project will result in refined inventory and photography protocols for digitization of collection objects, the implementation of a new collections management system, and the acquisition of a dedicated server to ensure that the database has capacity for future growth.
  • Florida International University (Miami, FL) – $250,000.00-Florida International University will expand the shelving capacity in its Rare Books and Special Collections Library, improve storage conditions for the collection, and improve public access to the collection.
  • National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium (Dubuque, IA) – $206,286.00-The National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium will conduct a collections survey and planning project that will build upon previous successful collections stewardship projects and improve the museum’s ability to care for and interpret its historical collections.
  • High Desert Museum (Bend, OR) – $155,280.00-The High Desert Museum will bring together key stakeholders to develop and implement the first High Desert Project, deconstructing the traditional conference structure to create a new approach to engaging broad audiences in dialogue-one that builds on the unique strengths of museums.
  • Connecticut Historical Society (Hartford, CT) – $238,604.00-The Connecticut Historical Society will inventory, rehouse, catalog, and digitize the Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program CCHAP collection which documents the cultural traditions and heritage within the rich diversity of Connecticut’s ethnic and workplace communities.
  • Mystic Seaport Museum (Mystic, CT)-$167,303.00-Mystic Seaport Museum will restore its 1921 fishing schooner-L.A. DUNTON-a National Historic Landmark vessel and one of the last surviving examples of its kind. Progress will be captured on video for podcast and other forms of distance learning to further expand the project reach.
  • Denver Museum of Nature and Science (Denver, CO)-$240,740.00-The Denver Museum of Nature and Science will advance stewardship and public access for 718 objects in its Northwest Coast Collection through collaborative conservation that involves Kwakwaka’wakw, Makah, Nuu-chah-nulth, and Tlingit and Haida tribes.
  • Center for Jewish History (New York, NY) – $52,230.00-The Center for Jewish History will improve stewardship of the 35mm and 16mm motion picture film collections of its five in-house partners: the American Jewish Historical Society, American Sephardi Federation, Leo Baeck Institute, Yeshiva University Museum, and YIVO Institute, as a pilot of a new digitization process.
  • USS Constitution Museum (Boston, MA) – $250,000.00-The USS Constitution Museum will launch a Salute to Service initiative to transform itself into a hub for conversation, connection, and community around military service so the community can see the museum as a trusted space for community engagement, and civilian participants in Salute to Service programs to gain an elevated understanding of military service and family sacrifice.
  • Witte Museum (San Antonio, TX)-$250,000.00-The Witte Museum will improve the conservation and preservation of its paleontology and geology collections to support continued fossil preparation for new fossil finds and acquisitions.
  • Krannert Art Museum (Champaign, IL) – $250,000.00-The Krannert Art Museum will reinstall its collection of ancient Andean art. This reinstallation will transform the ancient Andean gallery into an innovative teaching and research tool that better serves their core constituents and exposes audiences to the historical depth, cultural richness, and contemporary relevance of ancient Andean civilizations.
  • Plimoth Plantation (Plymouth, MA) – $227,272.00-The Plimoth Plantation will develop a suite of educational resources for teachers, students, and the general public focusing on the relationship between the early Pilgrims and the Wampanoag people.

Museums Empowered: Professional Development Opportunities for Museum Staff

  • Ohio History Connection (Columbus, OH) – $249,920.00-The Ohio History Connection will conduct an online professional development program to help the network become better managed, more resilient, and better able to serve the public. Modules will focus on topics such as board development; collections handling; engaging with local communities; and essential museum knowledge for boards, directors, staff, and volunteers from outside the museum field.

Inspire! Grants for Small Museums

  • Dubuque Museum of Art (Dubuque, IA) – $40,975.00-The Dubuque Museum of Art will upgrade its collections management software through a four-phase project that will increase public access to the museum’s collection.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) awarded $52.2 million in grants for 562 humanities projects featuring the following Affiliate initiatives:

  • Heard Museum (Phoenix, AZ) – $4,622-The Heard Museum will use the funding for the preservation assessment of a library and archive collection dedicated to Native American art and cultures, covering topics such as Native American fine art, literature, anthropology, and museum studies.
  • Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles, CA) – $172,445- The Japanese American National Museum will develop two, one-week workshops -Little Tokyo: How History Shapes a Community Across Generations- for 72 school teachers about the history and culture of Japanese-American immigrants and their place in U.S. history.
  • History Colorado (Denver, CO) – $224,914-History Colorado will digitize 100,000 pages from Colorado newspaper titles, published from 1859 to 1942, as part of the state’s continuing participation in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).
  • History Colorado (Denver, CO) – $208,808-History Colorado will produce eight 45- to 60-minute podcast episodes about Colorado and Western U.S. history entitled the Lost Highways Podcast Program.
  • Grinnell College (Grinnell, IA) – $6,000-Grinnell College staff will conduct research for a book on the development of the Filipino diaspora in the United States and Europe, as a case study to understand how diasporas evolve.
  • Plimoth Plantation (Plymouth, MA) – $49,200-The Plimoth Plantation will conduct an assessment of the collections and buildings at Plimoth Plantation, which has extensive collections of archaeological artifacts, fine and decorative art, and archival materials.
  • Michigan State University Museum (East Lansing, MI) – $9,901-Michigan State University Museum will purchase storage equipment for the Siyazama Project collection, which is housed at the university’s museum and consists of 66 traditional craft works created by South African women as part of an organized art and health initiative during the HIV/AIDS crisis.
  • Center for Jewish History (New York, NY) – $65,500-The Center for Jewish History will provide 12 months of stipend support (1 fellowship) per year for one year and to defray costs associated with the selection of fellows.
  • Museum of Flight (Seattle, WA) – $236,824-Museum of Flight will arrange, describe, catalog, and select the digitization of 170 cubic feet of archival materials and 260 objects from the William P. and Moya Olsen Lear Collection, including correspondence, photographs, model planes, invention prototypes, and 33 audio recordings and 18 films related to groundbreaking discoveries in aviation and radio that span the twentieth century.
  • Buffalo Bill Center of the West (Cody, WY) – $48,933-Buffalo Bill Center of the West will construct a plan for storage spaces at all six of the center’s collecting units to maximize the preservation environment, space efficiency, and access to collections by staff and the public. Center staff would work with a consulting conservator, architect, and engineer to develop the plan.
  • Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience (Seattle, WA)-$189,984- Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience will create two one-week workshops for 72 school teachers about the history and culture of Asian Pacific American immigrants in the Pacific Northwest.

The Mary Black Foundation awarded new grants to 19 nonprofits serving Spartanburg County, including $15,000 to Children’s Museum of the Upstate (Spartanburg, SC) to assist with operational costs to provide high-quality learning opportunities for young children in Spartanburg County.

Mid-America Arts Alliance awarded $50,000 to the American Jazz Museum (Kansas City, MO) to assist operational costs and digitizing of their collections.

Oklahoma History Center (Oklahoma City, OK) was awarded a grant through the Oklahoma Department of Libraries (ODL) for personal protective equipment (PPE) to be utilized by the OHC Education Department. The funding has been used to purchase sanitizing wipes, hand sanitizer and disinfectant for use by museum visitors and staff, as well as to be included in the trunks for our award-winning Traveling Trunk program.

The National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium (Dubuque, IA) received funding from two area foundations to support conservation education and equitable access for Dubuque County residents. Alliant Energy Foundation has awarded the Museum $5,000 towards the expansion of its conservation education live animal outreach program address Iowa bird conservation initiatives and provide teacher workshop opportunities. The McDonough Foundation awarded $2,000 to increase equitable access through the Everybody’s Museum Membership (EMM) program—a free membership program that is open to economically challenged youth and families in Dubuque County, as well as community members with physical and intellectual disabilities.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

Mercer Museum & Fonthill Castle (Doylestown, PA) and USS Constitution Museum (Boston, MA) recently received reaccreditations from the American Alliance of Museums (AAM).

RANDY PARKER/THE DAILY TRIBUNE NEWS Booth Western Art Museum is named the Best Art Museum in the USA Today 10 Best Readers’ Choice Awards contest.

The Booth Western Art Museum (Cartersville, GA) was named Best Art Museum in the USA Today 10 Best Readers’ Choice Awards contest.

The Museum of the South Dakota State Historical Society at the Cultural Heritage Center (Pierre,SD) earned an AASLH Award of Excellence for the exhibit “Silent Silos: South Dakota’s Missile Range.”

Michigan State University Museum (East Lansing, MI) received the Special Achievement – Excellence in Community Empowerment award for its exhibition – “Finding Our Voice: Sister Survivors Speak” at the 32nd annual Excellence in Exhibition Competition, presented by the American Alliance of Museums (AAM).

Framingham State University (Framingham, MA) and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign were recognized for their efforts to support diversity, equity, and inclusion on campus with a Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award. The award is given by INSIGHT into Diversity, the oldest and largest diversity magazine and website in higher education.

Coming Up in Affiliateland in January 2020

Happy new year all! We look forward to a collaborative and engaging 2020.

NORTH CAROLINA
The North Carolina Museum of History will screen the Smithsonian Channel film Civil War 360: Fight for Freedom in Raleigh, 1.8.

MASSACHUSETTS

View of the new Spark!Lab maker space for youth at the Springfield Museums in Massachusetts

The new Spark!Lab at the Springfield Museums, a dynamic learning space for families to explore invention and innovation.

The Springfield Museums open a new Spark!Lab Smithsonian, followed by a lecture on Springfield as a Place of Invention by Eric Hintz, historian at the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the National Museum of American History, in Springfield, 1.17.

IOWA
The National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium will screen several Smithsonian Channel films including Epic Yellowstone: Down the River Wild, Aerial America: Wilderness and more, in Dubuque, 1.18-20.

OKLAHOMA
The Oklahoma History Center will screen Smithsonian Channel films Drinks, Crime and Prohibition-Gangsters and G-Men and Drinks, Crime, and Prohibition-Flappers and Bootleggers, in Oklahoma City, 1.18.

 

“lets do history” with Oklahoma History Center

Special thanks to Sarah Dumas, Director of Education at the Oklahoma History Center, for this guest post.

ok_hist_1On February 11 educators from the Oklahoma History Center (OHC) were invited by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History to participate in its Let’s Do History Tour in Norman, Oklahoma. OHC Education Department staff provided a one-hour presentation about various programs offered by the Oklahoma History Center. The presentation included a detailed discussion of our traveling trunk program, with an opportunity for several unique learning experiences. Teachers explored and interacted with four different trunks. They also participated in two hands-on activities facilitated by our staff.

The first activity required teachers to investigate history by analyzing an artifact, and the second activity was to assemble a pioneer family and pack their wagon for a trip to Oklahoma Territory. It was certainly a fun afternoon for us, and it seemed the teachers enjoyed themselves as well. Perhaps the best part of the afternoon was when we returned to the museum and checked our email. Waiting in our inboxes were dozens of email requests for use of OHC resources, including the traveling trunks. In fact, of the fifty teachers who attended the workshop, almost half already made plans to participate in one of our programs or utilize our resources.

What a wonderful end to an exciting day with some fantastic teachers and the great folks at the National Museum of American History.

Interested in participating in a Let’s Do History Tour? Contact your National Outreach Manager for more information.

The Smithsonian Affiliations National Conference is October 17-20, 2016. Join us in Washington, D.C.! 

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