[NHCOLL-L:1953] RE: Ironic quotes from Bioscience

[David Richman]

Dear All:

The quote is all too true, has been for some time and in some places is 
getting worse.  It is nearly impossible to get through to some 
administrators (although sometimes we in the museum community have been our 
worst enemies) that collections serve an important function.  I have 
flooded administrators with information on how many people we serve in 
outreach, how many questions we field from our state and elsewhere, how 
many and what kind of research projects we back up and how many classes to 
which we provide teaching materials and I still cannot get an 
assistant.    In my case I'm not sure that taxonomy or museums per se are 
the problem.  Administrators deal with numerous demands from faculty and 
they often cannot tell which demands are worth supporting because everybody 
can quote statistics on how much their program is benefiting the 
university.  If money is tight the answer to all requests is "no."  I was 
told by one person that if being a player in the grantmanship game requires 
money then we just would not play.  We have to instead face the proximate 
problem of budget cuts next year.  I think in the future amateurs will take 
on much of the work because they don't have to deal with these issues in a 
tax-cutting low state revenue atmosphere.

On the other side there is more and more cooperation between molecular and 
whole-organism researchers and perhaps that will eventually filter up to 
administrators.

These are my opinions alone and not necessarily those of my institution.

Sincerely,

David B. Richman


> >
> > "As molecules became more important, traditional taxonomy, with its 
> reliance
> > on large specimen collections, became an antiquated backwater.  It recalled
> > too many memories of 20th century naturalists, butterfly catchers, and John
> > Steinbeck's "Doc" -- a marine biologist who collected specimens off the
> > rocks on Cannery Row.  Many of the gene jockeys questioned whether taxonomy
> > was ever a science at all.
> > As if in response to this growing concensus, financing for taxonomy took a
> > nosedive.  Traditional taxonomists, those who have full knowledge of a
> > single taxon, are now in short supply."
> >
> > (Paul Thacker is a freelance science writer.  Clearly, he is not a
> > taxonomist.)
> >
> >
> > Robert E. Gropp, 2003.  Are University Natural Science Collections Going
> > Extinct?  Bioscience, June 2003/Vol. 53, no. 6, p 550:
> >
> > "...the chancellor of the University of Nebraska has announced the
> > elimination of several collections ad all research divisions at UNSM.
> > Museum supporters have not capitulated, however.  In early May, amid 
> growing
> > faculty tension and national media attention, the chancellor announced he
> > would put his planned cuts to a vote of the faculty.  If a majority agree
> > with the chancellor's budget plan, it will take effect; if not, he will
> > resign, he says, and university deans will make budget cuts."
> >
> > (I hope the faculty members don't read Thacker before they vote.)
> >
> > Elaine
> >

David B. Richman
Science Specialist/Graduate Professor and
Curator, The Arthropod Museum
Department of Entomology, Plant Pathology and Weed Science
MSC 3BE, Box 30003
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, NM 88003Tel: (505) 646-2900
Web pages: http://taipan.nmsu.edu/people/richman/dbr.html
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