More than 100 herbaria have closed in the past 18 years and less than half of the top 50 US universities that once offered advanced degrees in botany still do so. An article in the journal Nature, Plant collections left in the cold by cuts, reported on the dwindling herbaria and botany advanced degree programs. Many herbaria are funded through universities and research facilities. University funding is reduced, so they have fewer full-time with benefits faculty members, less research funding, and less money to curate plant collections.
Natural history museums are important . . . for . . . professional cooperation, but they have many other functions, including the obvious - education — but also research, and public service. As a curator I was heavily involved with all these functions. Still natural history museums are usually underfunded and often attacked, especially in regard to politicized issues like global warming or evolution.
The problem with the ULM collection according to Pani is that only a few specimens are used in coursework at the university, and fewer are used for student and faculty research, although specimens have been loaned to outside researchers. (Is this due to ULM’s researchers not having adequate funding and university priorities?) Since 2008, state funding has been cut by 50 percent claims Pani, and ULM can’t afford to continue such public services as loaning out to other scientists (thanks Bobby Jindal). He wants the Biology Department to reduce the collection to fit into the space of a typical classroom using just those specimens needed for courses and find another institution to transport and then house the remainder of the specimens. If no arrangements have been made by mid-July, the collection will be destroyed because that’s when renovation will begin in the space currently housing the specimens.
These renovations are designed to enlarge the track for athletic events. This has highest importance as ULM can then host meets, bringing in visitors who add to the local economy and revenue to the university. Pani says such income is important due to the financial troubles of public higher education.
Think about that: higher education is better served by enlarging the athletic facilities than by retaining a natural history collection comprising scientists’ work over the past centuries. Is the value of a collection like this in how frequently it is used and how much revenue it generates? What a short-sighted business-like view of academia and science. We can never go back to re-acquire the fish, insects, plants and other specimens found in 1800. These records are part of history and provide essential information on ecosystems and taxonomic data used now in classifying and understanding species. As DNA studies revise taxonomic relationships, researchers need to examine old specimens alongside newer specimens.
Business decisions are important and scientists work within tight budgets, especially as funding shrinks. But maintaining the resources we use such as labs, equipment, and specimens is the job of institutions not of individuals. It’s our heritage and our future. Look at the image below of flies collected at different times in the past. The size of this fly species has varied over time. Such observation is why we want to see the specimens collected over the past 100-200 years. This information is the beginning of new studies asking what environmental traits resulted in size changes. Studies like this may not generate revenue for the university, but expanding knowledge used to be the role of higher education. But now, ULM believes that track and field events are more important.
Take action!
The Museum has a Facebook page where they have posted a link to a Smithsonian article on the mess. It might be nice to drop by and leave them some encouragement. Also, you email VP Pali and telling him what you think of ULMonroe’s priorities: pani@ulm.edu.
H/T to northcountry21st for this idea.