[NHCOLL-L:1821] FW: NYTimes.com Article: A Biologist Will Lead Smithsonian Museum

[Bob Glotzhober]

If you have not seen or heard about it, this article on the Smithsonian will
be of some interest.


> ===========================================
> Robert C. Glotzhober			bglotzhober at ohiohistory.org
> Curator of Natural History		phone  614 297-2633
> Ohio Historical Society			fax       614 297-2233
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> 
> -----Original Message-----
> Subject:	NYTimes.com Article: A Biologist Will Lead Smithsonian
> Museum 
> 
> This article from NYTimes.com 
> 
> 
> A Biologist Will Lead Smithsonian Museum
> 
> January 30, 2003
> By ELIZABETH OLSON 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  
> 
> WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 - The Smithsonian Institution has named
> Cristian Samper, a 37-year-old biologist, as director of
> the National Museum of Natural History. 
> 
> Mr. Samper, who was born in Costa Rica and is deputy
> director of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in
> Panama, inherits a museum that has been in turmoil in
> recent years because of leadership turnover, insufficient
> money and an unclear mission. 
> 
> The museum's last full-time director, Robert Fri,
> unexpectedly resigned in May 2001, expressing unhappiness
> with how the museum's science programs were being
> reorganized. The museum, on the Mall and housing 124
> million biological, geological and other specimens, has had
> six directors since 1990. 
> 
> Mr. Samper's mission, as laid out by a commission that
> examined the Smithsonian's science programs, will be to
> "restructure and reinvent" the museum, a signature part of
> the world's largest museum and research complex. The
> 93-year-old museum, whose best-known display is the Hope
> diamond, has 300 employees and a $61 million annual budget.
> 
> 
> Mr. Samper said he would do some restructuring, and that
> "what the museum really needs is some repackaging." 
> 
> Earlier this month the commission declared that the
> Smithsonian's science programs were "unfocused and
> underfunded," and recommended that a "distinguished
> scientist" be found to run the museum, which has specimen
> collections that are a "vital and unique national
> resource." 
> 
> Before he joined the Smithsonian's institute based in
> Panama two years ago, Mr. Samper created an environmental
> education program for 10,000 schools in Colombia, and
> helped form Colombia's environment ministry in 1993, the
> Smithsonian said. He has a master's degree and a Ph.D. in
> biology from Harvard University and studied biology as an
> undergraduate at the University of the Andes in Bogotá,
> Colombia. 
> 
> In describing his agenda for the museum, he said, "I will
> need to pull together its strengths in areas like
> biodiversity and climate change, and link them to policy
> issues." The museum's collections in those areas can help
> address issues including how people have adapted to changes
> in the earth's climate, he said.
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/30/arts/design/30DIRE.html?ex=1044949288&ei
> =1&en=910f7f6000a4e21e
> 
> 
> 
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