[Nhcoll-l] Urgent: University of Louisiana at Monroe Museum of Natural History facing imminent divestment or destruction

[Doug Yanega]

 From the University of Louisiana at Monroe Museum of Natural History’s 
Facebook page, dated today (March 28):

"Dear Friends,

It is my sad duty to report to you that the ULM administration has 
decided to divest the research collections in the Museum of Natural 
History. This includes the 6 million fish specimens in the Neil Douglas 
fish collection and the nearly 500,000 plant specimens in the R. Dale 
Thomas plant collection. They find no value in the collections and no 
value of the collections to the university. 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. With only about 20 hours 
left, we have found no magic solution yet. *To add insult to injury on 
what was a very hard day, we were told that if the collections are not 
relocated to other institutions, the collections will be destroyed at 
the end of July*.

While we weep that our own institution would turn its back on 50+ years 
of hard work and dedication, we will not abandon the collections to the 
dumpsters. They did not have the courage to inform us face-to-face, but 
we have the courage to persevere through these dark times.

Oh, in other sad news, we were informed that there will not be any 
expansion of the public displays in Hanna Hall."

Not sure what we can all do about this, but I'm betting this is not 
going to be the last time we see this sort of sudden decision to 
eliminate collections under the new political climate.

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)
              https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__cache.ucr.edu_-7Eheraty_yanega.html&d=DwIDaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=UKtxWb_xn3X4vjRozNxNzC1lTeH0mSJWRQoKJKFmgsM&s=FhA9wiedAgS9JYB7MzEgJURSH15DJstK5YV-oX04Cdg&e= 
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82

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