[Taxacom] Natural History Collections Under Fire

Wed Mar 29 11:52:16 CDT 2017

Oops - I should have said 'universities and colleges in the US - don't mean
to speak for other countries.

John Grehan

On Wed, Mar 29, 2017 at 12:51 PM, John Grehan <calabar.john at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I agree with Alan's interpretation that museum/herbarium collection is
> being treated as an "underperforming asset", not generating grant overhead
> proportional to its space allocation. Many years ago I saw how a university
> diverted an endowment in support of natural history collections to their
> art museum rather than the natural history collection because the art
> museum held 'ethnographic art' and since ethnographic art was part of
> natural history they were, but definition correctly allocating the money.
> Of course the art museum was considered far more prestigious and no doubt
> engendered all manner of alumni development opportunities. Universities and
> colleges are corporate entities - they have to be and there is no such
> thing as fairness in business.
>
> John Grehan
>
> On Wed, Mar 29, 2017 at 12:40 PM, Weakley, Alan <weakley at bio.unc.edu>
> wrote:
>
>> I agree with Doug's analysis of which account to give greater credence.
>>
>> But...  I worry about the financial argument.  This is the classic
>> double-edged sword.  The administration (which does not seem to value the
>> scientific and educational value of the specimens -- by chance I was using
>> this morning a M.S. thesis from ULM almost completely based on those
>> specimens) could take the attitude of "oh, if they're worth MONEY, we won't
>> give them away without being paid!".  Trying to argue for financial value
>> of scientific specimens takes one into arguing for the worth of something
>> on a different and unfavorable playing field -- reminds of the economic
>> analysis of whales and whaling that suggested that the best thing
>> (economically) would be to hunt all whales to extinction as expeditiously
>> as possible and convert underutilized whaling fleet assets to other
>> purposes.  I'm not sure the University administrators are interested in
>> some intrinsic monetary value of the specimens.  I think they are making a
>> market decision (and maybe a rational one from the POV of modern
>> universities-as-businesses) that the museum/herbarium collection is an
>> "underperforming asset", not generating grant overhead proportional to its
>> space allocation.
>>
>> Alan
>>
>> Alan Weakley
>> Director of the UNC-CH Herbarium (NCU), North Carolina Botanical Garden
>> Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Biology and Curriculum for the
>> Environment and Ecology
>> Campus Box 3280, Coker Hall 419, 120 South Road
>> University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
>> Chapel Hill NC 27599-3280
>> 919.619.1101 (mobile)
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Taxacom [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of
>> Doug Yanega
>> Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2017 12:23 PM
>> To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
>> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Natural History Collections Under Fire
>>
>> On 3/29/17 8:19 AM, John Grehan wrote:
>> > Last week Pani told leaders of the College of Arts, Education and
>> > Sciences, which manages the museum, of the decision. He met with them
>> > again this week. He said the collections, except for some of the
>> > teaching specimens, will be donated and relocated by mid-July. The
>> > CAES people asked for 48 hours to determine if space on campus could
>> > be found and the entire collection retained.
>> >
>> Contrast this with what the collection staff stated:
>>
>> "The College was given 48 hours to suggest an alternate location for the
>> collections so that Brown Stadium can be renovated for the track team."
>> and "we were told that if the collections are not relocated to other
>> institutions, the collections will be destroyed at the end of July." and
>> "They did not have the courage to inform us face-to-face".
>>
>> Someone is not telling the whole truth here, and one has to suspect it is
>> the administrator, who did not identify where the specimens were to be
>> donated, says there was a meeting, and omitted the ultimatum. The staff
>> posting, on the other hand, smacks of sincerity and desperation, and says
>> there was no meeting; of the two versions of the story, I give it more
>> credence, though I stand to be corrected if anyone knows better.
>>
>> As a follow-up, I might point something out that no one has mentioned:
>>
>> Another recent news item that got significant attention was the donation
>> of a collection of 1.25 million weevils and planthoppers to ASU, valued at
>> 10 million dollars.
>>
>> http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-education/
>> 2017/03/23/green-valley-couple-insect-collection-asu/99470426/
>>
>> At that rate, the collections at ULM are worth between 50 and 100 million
>> dollars (surely fish and plants are worth more per specimen than weevils,
>> at least in the public's perception).
>>
>> Let's think for a moment about the Board of Trustees at ULM; *how do they
>> feel about ULM administrators saying that if they cannot find a place to
>> give away nearly 100 million dollars' worth of ULM assets, that those
>> assets will be destroyed?*
>>
>> If these people only care about dollars, is this not the exact kind of
>> argument that could get them to reverse this decision? Would the Board of
>> Trustees not be the first point of contact to start such a reversal in
>> motion, if the admins have already made their decision?
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> --
>> Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
>> Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega
>> phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
>>               http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
>>    "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
>>          is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82
>>
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>
>