By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
After the university told Sternberg Museum of Natural History employees the museum would close at the end of the year, the community has pushed back to save it.
A petition on change.org urges the FHSU administration not to close the museum.
As of 1:48 p.m. today, the petition had 2,013 signatures.
The petition creator was not listed on the site.
The petition creator emphasized the museum's importance.“The Sternberg Museum is not just a building filled with artifacts. It's a living repository of our natural history, a gathering place for learning and inspiration for locals and visitors alike. It has played a crucial role in fostering a deeper understanding and appreciation of our natural world for countless individuals,” the petition said.
“Its exhibits and live animals have inspired budding scientists, provided educational insights for school children, and brought together diverse groups of people from all walks of life, united in their curiosity and love for history and nature.”
The petition also emphasized the museum's importance to Ellis County's economy.
“Moreover, the museum has been an economic catalyst, contributing to the local economy by attracting tourists, supporting nearby businesses, and providing jobs and volunteer opportunities. Its closure would be a significant blow to Ellis County's cultural and economic landscape,” the petition said.It urged the university to find other means to support the museum.
“We propose exploring options such as increasing community involvement, establishing partnerships with other universities and scientific entities, and launching targeted fundraising campaigns to help maintain museum operations,” the petition said.
Judd Choate, an alumnus whose father, Jerry Choate, was a longtime professor at FHSU and a former director of the Sternberg, said he does not think the university's leadership understands the museum's importance.
Jerry Choate researched bats and rodents and wrote in the 1970s about how climate change was affecting these small mammals.
“To faculty, he was nationally and internationally known largely for the Sternberg,” Judd Choate said.
The museum has thousands of specimens, some collected by his father, that are not on public display.
“I suspect that the administration has no idea what the museum is about,” Choate said. “The museum has one of the most extraordinary mammal and avian collections in the world. …
“It includes all these different sections, and people, researchers and academics from around the world come to Hays, Kansas, to go through that collection.”
He said the collection's academic significance is international.
“There are literally animals that go back in that collection 100-plus years that researchers can come and look at to do that kind of research to research the effects of global warming,” Choate said.
He also cited the importance of Sternberg’s collection of live animals.
“Sternberg has one of the largest, if not the largest collections of live rattlesnakes in the world, and for that reason, it's a hub of people trying to research various serums that you can get from rattlesnake venom and so forth,” Choate said.
Choate added, “I'm going to guess that the administration believes this is just a tourist attraction that brings in, you know, 90,000 people a year, and that it's sort of unrelated to the university. It's way out there on the highway.
“But they're totally missing the bigger picture, and I suspect that it's a show of ignorance on their part that they have no understanding of the larger university and academic-related world that Sternberg occupies.”
Choate said he and his mother feel so strongly about the Sternberg's importance that they would consider pulling a $1 million endowment for a professorship from the university if the museum closes.
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The Western Fossil Lab in Scott City also shared the following statement about the Sternberg on its Facebook page this week. The complete post appears below.
I have thought carefully about whether to comment publicly on the situation surrounding the Sternberg Museum of Natural History. I feel compelled to do so because this institution has had an enormous impact on my life, and because I believe FHSU and the people of Hays need to think very carefully before making any irreversible decisions about its future.
I have a somewhat unusual perspective on this. I am a graduate of Fort Hays State University, with degrees in geosciences and education. I now serve as curator of paleontology at the El Quartelejo Museum in Scott City and as a research affiliate with the University of Kansas. Before that, I was a high school student drawn to FHSU largely because of the Sternberg.
While still in high school, I donated a rare fossil eel to the museum. That experience helped ignite my interest in paleontology and science. On my first day as an FHSU undergraduate, I donated a remarkably complete fossil bird skeleton. That specimen later became the subject of research published in Nature. I subsequently worked at the Sternberg during my undergraduate years. The museum was not simply something I visited while attending FHSU. It was part of why I went there, and it became part of why I am doing what I do today.
My story is not unique.
The Sternberg represents generations of people who have invested their time, money, careers and personal collections into building something for Kansas. Mike Everhart, a giant in Kansas paleontology and recently the keynote speaker at our Fossil Festival in Scott City, has spent decades researching, preparing, publishing on and donating specimens through the Sternberg. The Oceans of Kansas Prep Lab was made possible in part through support from Mike and Pam Everhart, the Dane G. Hansen Foundation and others. The museum’s paleontology collection alone contains hundreds of thousands of specimens, including holotypes, documenting the natural history of the Great Plains.
There are countless other donors, researchers, volunteers, students and members of the public who have poured themselves into this institution.
That investment matters.
The Sternberg is not simply a building full of objects that can be treated like any other university asset. Scientific collections are infrastructure for research and education. Once important specimens and their associated records are dispersed, sold or otherwise removed from an institution, the collection that generations of people built cannot simply be recreated when finances improve.
I am also troubled by how this situation became public. The Hays Post reported that the public learned of the potential closure through a Facebook post from a museum employee, while FHSU had not yet made an official announcement. A university figure cited difficult financial decisions following a $2.4 million reduction in state funding.
Whatever caused that gap in communication, an institution of this importance deserves better. Employees, students, alumni, donors and the Hays community deserve a clear explanation and a transparent process.
I also do not want to pretend the financial situation is simple. A $2.4 million reduction is significant, and FHSU has to make difficult decisions when state funding changes. Kansas policymakers should understand that these decisions eventually affect actual students, employees and institutions in communities across the state.
But financial difficulty does not automatically mean that the Sternberg itself has to disappear.
If the current operating model is too expensive, change the model. Downsize if necessary. Consolidate collections and programs. Reconsider expensive components that are not central to the museum’s scientific mission. Pursue grants and major gifts more aggressively. Build an endowment. Develop outside partnerships. Consider different models of university, community or state support. There are difficult options between maintaining everything exactly as it is and dismantling the institution.
Before taking such a drastic step, FHSU also needs to take a hard look at leadership and long-term development.
A museum in a difficult financial environment needs active leadership: people constantly pursuing grants, cultivating donors, developing partnerships, organizing fundraising efforts and building a financial foundation for the next generation.
That deserves serious examination before concluding that the museum itself is unsustainable. If different leadership or a substantial restructuring is necessary, those are difficult conversations worth having. They are far less consequential than permanently dismantling an institution and dispersing collections that cannot be replaced.
The consequences would extend beyond the museum. Students in geology, biology and related fields would lose an important educational and research resource. Faculty and researchers would lose access to collections built over generations. Hays would lose an important cultural and educational institution. Kansas would lose part of its scientific heritage.
And future students would lose opportunities that people like me had.
I think about that high school student who walked into the Sternberg and donated a fossil eel. I think about the undergraduate who walked into the museum on his first day at FHSU carrying a fossil that would eventually contribute to published scientific research. I think about Mike Everhart and the many other people who have spent decades preparing specimens, publishing papers, funding laboratories and donating collections. I think about the Hansen Foundation and countless others who have invested in this place because they believed it was worth building.
I went on to tell my own students when I was a public school teacher that Fort Hays State was an institution that punched above its weight and offered an exceptional educational opportunity. The Sternberg was part of why I could say that.
I strongly encourage President Tisa Mason and the members of the President’s Council and Cabinet to consider the full range of options before taking an irreversible step.
If the current Sternberg model cannot continue exactly as it exists today, then change the model. If it needs to be smaller, make it smaller. If it needs different leadership, change the leadership. If it needs a major fundraising campaign, undertake one.
But please do not confuse the financial difficulty of operating an institution with the conclusion that the institution itself has no future.
The Sternberg was built over generations. It has helped create scientists, educators and researchers. It has preserved irreplaceable evidence of Kansas’s natural history and earned the trust and investment of countless people.
That deserves more than a quick decision during a difficult budget year.
It deserves a serious plan for the next generation.