Dear Dr. Tisa Mason,
I am a proud graduate of Fort Hays State University and a longtime supporter of the university's Sternberg Museum of Natural History, serving as its adjunct curator of paleontology for over two decades.
It was brought to my unexpected, disheartening attention that you have decided to close the museum by Dec. 18, 2026, and, even more concerning, I have also heard a rumor of a possible sale of specimens from the museum collections.
While the closure of the ‘public exhibition side’ of the museum would be a major blow to west-central Kansans, particularly children, with already limited access to educational resources in the region, my message here focuses on the absolute need for FHSU to maintain the entire ‘collections side’ of the museum intact as is and cared for in perpetuity, using its paleontological collections as an example.
Besides the fact that deaccessioning specimens collected from U.S. federal lands without proper permission from appropriate federal authorities, let alone selling them, would be illegal, one must realize that every specimen accessioned and curated in the museum’s ‘permanent collections’ was carefully vetted by past and present museum curators to be scientifically significant, worth saving for Kansans and the global scientific community in perpetuity.
From the ethical standpoint, since the late George F. Sternberg's time, all fossil specimens in the museum’s vertebrate and invertebrate collections must be assumed that there were landowners and fossil discoverers who faithfully donated their precious possessions and finds to the museum with the premise that they will be cared for in perpetuity for educational and scientific purposes.
More critically, from the scientific standpoint, all the described, referred, or figured specimens in the literature must remain accessible in perpetuity to other scientists to allow reproducibility of published information and data: i.e., the very core of what science demands.
Among the many things FHSU—especially through my paleontology professors like the now-retired Dr. Michael E. Nelson and the late Dr. Richard J. Zakrzewski—taught me was to be a responsible, ethical scientist with integrity.
Following their legacy, I have dedicated the entire 30+ years of my academic and teaching career to promoting the preservation and protection of fossils and the importance of natural history collections. I have served on the Government Affairs Committee of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (the world's largest professional paleontological organization) since 2005 (as its chair since 2011), tackling a variety of domestic and foreign issues that affect the field of paleontology.
More proudly, I've made considerable efforts to spread public awareness of the great harm that auctioning/commercialization of fossils causes to the science of paleontology.
To demonstrate this last point, I have attached the following three articles that have been globally distributed, in which I proudly listed my formal Sternberg Museum affiliation in the first two (the lack in the third one was simply due to space limitations).
1) Shimada, K., P. J. Currie, E. Scott, and S. Sumida. 2014. The greatest challenge to 21st century paleontology: When commercialization of fossils threatens the science. Palaeontologia Electronica, 17(1), 1E, 4 pp.
https://palaeo-electronica.org/content/2014/691-great-threat-in-21st-century
2) Futurum (based in the U.K.) educational resource. 2021. Professor Kenshu Shimada—Jaws: The importance of shark fossils for paleontology research. https://futurumcareers.com/jaws-the-importance-of-shark-fossils-for-palaeontology-research [see section (in the link or on page 4 of the attachment) “What issues will face the next generation of paleontologists?”, where I specifically address to children the great threat caused by fossil commercialization]
3) Theodor, J. M., K. Shimada, K. Curry Rogers, and S. Sumida. 2025. Fossils are scientific evidence, and shouldn’t be auctioned for millions to private buyers. The Conversation.
https://theconversation.com/fossils-are-scientific-evidence-and-shouldnt-be-auctioned-for-millions-to-private-buyers-262777
As you can see from the titles or a note in brackets of these articles, the rumor that you may be considering selling museum specimens to private buyers, if it is true, has been an indescribably painful, back-stabbing.
How could the great education FHSU provided me, which I’m forever grateful for, come to such an uneducated proposal if it is true? To put it simply, the planned closure of the museum and the potential sale of Sternberg specimens have not only failed west-central Kansans, but have also failed the science of paleontology on a massive global scale.
To put this matter in a different perspective, I have also attached my curriculum vitae, which includes 60+ of my publications highlighted in yellow. Each of those highlighted papers refers to one or more Sternberg fossil specimens, many of which were personally collected and donated by me since the early 1990s, as well as those that are based on my undergraduate and graduate students’ 1–3-year efforts collecting and analyzing microscopic bones and teeth of fossil vertebrates from rocks I collected in Kansas and writing up their manuscripts (please note that 20 or so of the yellow-highlighted papers were first-authored by my undergraduate or graduate students, denoted by ‘U’ or ‘G’, respectively).
Over the years, I have also cultivated fantastic relationships with local landowners and amateur fossil hunters in Kansas, who have graciously donated their personal fossil specimens on behalf of my and my students’ research and the Sternberg, and now they are contacting me as to what would happen to their donated specimens if the rumor is true.
All in all, I have donated or processed curations of 100s of specimen lots (each ‘lot’ designated with a unique, permanent Sternberg catalog number that would allow reproducibility of my and my students’ published data), represented by nearly 60,000 separate fossil specimens by my quick count.
It must also be noted that the Sternberg holds many ‘type specimens’ (each representing a unique name-bearing specimen that defines that very species) that must be protected in the public domain at all costs, as per, for example, the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN: https://www.iczn.org/the-code/the-international-code-of-zoological-nomenclature/).
Furthermore, there are multiple undescribed fossil fish specimens in the Sternberg, which I believe are at least two new species yet to be introduced to science.
In addition, while I believe almost all iconic/‘charismatic’ specimens on exhibit and in the repository room at the Sternberg have been documented in scientific literature [including my beloved multiple gigantic shark (Cretoxyrhina) specimens I studied for my M.S. thesis at FHSU], many other unpublished fossil specimens bear scientific significance that other experts, my students and I have yet to publish on, or remain unrecognized, awaiting discoveries by future generations of scientists.
My data, photographs, and sketches of those undescribed fossils in the Sternberg, which I have accumulated over the past three decades, would become scientifically unpublishable and worthless if the specimens were to be removed from the museum’s permanent collections.
This will also apply to some of my current students who are actively working on Sternberg specimens as well as to many other students and experts internationally who visited the museum for their research over the years.
In other words, there are no ‘dispensable specimens’ in the Sternberg’s permanent collections.
For these reasons, the museum’s entire collections must remain intact and accessible at FHSU in perpetuity to the international scientific community.
I’m in disbelief and heartbroken that FHSU, which I have adored, has completely betrayed my lifelong efforts to promote the preservation and protection of fossils and the importance of natural history collections.
If any part of the Sternberg collections, particularly the paleontology collections, is lost because of your decision, please assume that I will be copiously documenting and publishing the matter as “The greatest failure in 21st-century paleontology: When commercialization of fossils assaulted the science.” That would be a tragedy in every sense.
However, it will be my responsibility to do so as an educator and scholar; otherwise, I fear I will also be complicit and wish not to become on the wrong side of the Fort Hays legacy or the history of science.
Therefore, I would wholeheartedly appreciate your reconsideration regarding the proposed closure of the museum and possible sale of specimens housed in Sternberg's permanent collections.
— Kenshu Shimada, Ph.D.
Professor and biology's graduate director, DePaul University, Chicago
Adjunct curator, paleontology
Sternberg Museum of Natural History
Scientific Affiliate, Integrative Research Center
Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago