Simmons provides ACUP with an update on Haffenreffer relocation
The committee planning Brown's new museum expects it to be "an open window to the intellectual and research life of the University," William Simmons told members of the Advisory Committee on University Planning (ACUP) at their April 10 meeting.
Simmons, senior vice president for academic outreach and affiliated programs, updated ACUP about work done by the committee - Simmons, trustee emeritus John Carter Brown, and faculty members Shepard Krech and Richard Gould of anthropology, Sheila Bonde of history of art and architecture, Martha Joukowsky of archaeology and art, and Patrick Malone of American civilization.
They envision shared exhibition space, laboratories and classrooms that would promote the interdisciplinary exploration of material culture, Simmons said. "This is an opportunity to create a facility that is seen as a teaching and research extension...of existing departments and fields," he noted. Faculty comment was solicited, particularly from those affiliated with anthropology, American civilization, "a coterie of disciplines defined as ancient studies," history of art and architecture, religious studies, Jewish studies, ethnomusicology, and the African-American program.
The planners hope to present their recommendations to the University by the end of April.
The movement toward a campus museum began last June when it became apparent to the University that its proposal to relocate the Brown-owned Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology in Bristol, R.I., to the Old Stone Bank building in Providence would not work. The Haffenreffer collections will become the cornerstone of the new museum.
The committee visited a handful of renown university museums, including those at UCLA, Berkeley, Harvard and Yale, to examine how they were run and whether they were tied to the universities' education and research missions, Simmons said. What committee members found were majestic museums meant to impress or research museums that were not linked to undergraduate teaching. If Brown's museum is to succeed, Simmons told ACUP, it must take advantage of the University's intellectual life and its exhibitions should be integrated with Brown's day-to-day activity.
Simmons offered ACUP members no specifics about the new building's size or location. "Certainly we would want to double" the Haffenreffer's current size of 37,000 square feet, he said. Potential sites include the strip mall behind Gregorian Quad. He said that once the committee's plan is endorsed, a new museum could open within 3.5 years.