New Hampshire doesn’t have a state museum. I never realized there were such things until someone I interviewed mentioned a mastodon fossil in Albany, which prompted me to travel to the NY State Museum soon after to see it.
Not understanding what a state museum is, it shocked me that there was no admission fee; anyone from anywhere could visit the museum at no cost. I marveled then—as I marvel still—that such places exist. (To be clear: not all state museums are free.)
The Cohoes Mastodon at the NY State Museum in Albany, NY; picture taken by the author of this blog. I learned of this mastodon thanks to Dartmouth professor, Dr. Roger Sloboda, after interviewing him for a piece I was writing about a mammoth & mastodon exhibit at the Boston Museum of Science in 2012.
Illinois not only has a state museum, that museum is made up of five separate museums with over 13 million artifacts. And in 2015, Governor Bruce Rauner wanted to close it completely.
During a messy and contentious budget battle, the museum was shuttered for nine months, only to be reopened this past July with a new $5 admission fee. But by then, most of the staff had gone, forced to take jobs in other places as their future at the museum was decidedly uncertain.
Screenshot from this page of the Illinois State Museum website.
No one knows this better than Dr. Chris Widga, who had been a vertebrate paleontologist employed at the Illinois State Museum. He now works at the Center for Excellence in Paleontology at East Tennessee State University (ETSU).
“The whole question of Channel Islands and island mammoths probably got me through last winter,” Dr. Widga explained as we spoke by phone.
We were discussing the effect islands had on proboscidean evolution and the exciting recent research done in part by researchers from The Mammoth Site and the National Park Service.
“In Illinois, as the State government was falling apart around my ears, as the State Museum was closed, I basically closed my door and was doing the analysis for the Quaternary International article. In so doing, I was thinking about these pygmy mammoths. As it’s icy outside and subzero for about six weeks at a time, that kept my sanity.” He laughed. “So the Channel Islands has been my refuge, I guess, even though I’ve never actually been out on one of them.”
The move from Illinois to Tennessee was not just a contrast in physical environments. It also meant moving from a scientific institution founded in 1855 to one that has been open for just 10 years. Dr. Widga explained that a mere two weeks prior to his start date at ETSU, the university formed a partnership with a local science center. The ETSU staff maintains the collections, conducts research, and oversees excavations at the nearby Gray Fossil Site. The science center staff is responsible for educational activities within the museum and overall maintenance.
“Their [educational] philosophy is very similar to ours,” Dr. Widga said of the science center. “It’s inquiry-based. We want people to come in and learn through asking questions rather than just be spoon-fed facts.”
So much of what Dr. Widga has done involves public outreach. From videos about the collections at the Illinois State Museum to long-distance learning programs like The Mammoth Expedition, work he did in conjunction with Dr. Katy Smith at Georgia Southern University and with the Milwaukee Public Museum.
When I commented on how much I loved that kind of publicly accessible information, his response was, “Part of that is because I’m in a museum. I’m not buried under coursework and teaching. Outreach is valued. The way you justify your existence in a museum is to connect with the public. And part of that is figuring out how we can connect with the public in ways where it’s an exponential relationship.”
In other words, not having a one-on-one conversation with a museum visitor, but creating a website about the Ice Age in the Midwest, for example.
Figure from a presentation done by Dr. Chris Widga as part of the National Science Foundation grant received; image courtesy of Chris Widga.
Despite everything he’s gone through, there is no question Dr. Widga loves what he does. It permeates his voice when he speaks of paleontology, and it prompted me to ask if he ever becomes excited at work. His response was a definitive ‘YES.’
By way of explanation, he quoted his now-retired colleague, Dr. Jeff Saunders, who used to say, “‘Going to work in the morning was like going to Disney Land everyday.’”
Not only did the two scientists literally work across the hall from each other at the Illinois State Museum, they were apparently known to shout out excitedly to the other whenever one read a great article or wanted to share a relevant scientific image.
“Part of the reason I like museums is because you just never know!” Dr. Widga continued. “Some of the new things come from the collections; some of the new things come from new papers. You read them and you’re like, ‘oh, this explains it!’ It was something that you had been working on for a long time and, all of a sudden, somebody else had that last piece of the puzzle that puts the whole thing together.
“At least once a day—even on the worst days—there’s something that comes through and I’m like, ‘oh, this is so cool!’”
Proboscideans at Morrill Hall at the University of Nebraska State Museum of Natural History; image courtesy of Chris Widga
The seemingly idyllic work environment in Illinois lasted for a decade until 2015. Despite protests, a MoveOn.org petition and public outcry about the museum closing, Dr. Widga and his colleagues were forced to consider other options. The fate of the museum was out of their hands.
“There was a point as I started looking for jobs last year that I asked myself, you know, do I want to continue in this vein?”
“I’d watched many of [my colleagues] that had taken jobs in Research One institutions [become] totally burned out. Or they’d kind of gone in weird and funky directions, not because the research was taking them in that direction, but because they were getting pressure from their institution to go in a certain direction or something like that.
“And that was part of the fun of the Illinois State Museum is that I could work on anything. Nobody was saying, ‘You have to work on elephants.’ That was a choice that was mine. Nobody was saying, ‘well, you have to work on dogs.’ That was a choice that was mine. You could chase whatever questions were out there.
“The feedback that I got from the people that interviewed me [was that] they were very interested in what I did. It was a very different situation than what we were going through at the Illinois State Museum where, essentially, you were being told, ‘what you do is not important. And none of what you do—your position, your entire existence—is important.’ [The feedback I got while interviewing for other jobs] revived this idea that what we do is important, and it’s exciting.”
I couldn’t help but compare his experience in Illinois to the general anti-science climate in our government today. It was particularly interesting for me to speak with Dr. Widga about his paper on Pleistocene ecology a day or so after the House Science Committee’s so-called hearing on climate change. Dr. Widga’s infectious enthusiasm took a very somber turn, as he conceded how difficult things become when “politics starts really driving the boat and reason takes a back seat.”
“That won’t change any of the science,” he added, “[but] it may change how the science is funded. It also won’t change any outreach that we do or the educational activities! In fact, if anything, it’s going to make those seem more important and put more emphasis on those.
“We can talk about the scientific community writ-large, but certainly within the paleontological community, you will find very few working paleontologists, working scientists, who say that education and outreach is not a good thing anymore.
“It used to be that you could just hole-up and do your research and never really interact with the public. But if anything, this whole process [with the IL governor and the Illinois State Museum] has made us realize that that can’t happen.
“There’s this realization that pre-dates this modern political atmosphere: That you really do need to work with the public and you need to make sure that the point of what you’re doing is out there. Not just in terms of dinosaurs are always cool so therefore that’s why we’re doing it. But we’re also doing it to learn more about how our world works–the nuts-and-bolts of how ecosystems are put together, the nuts-and-bolts of how climate changes impact those ecosystems–that has real-life implications for today and into the future.
“And there’ve been some really loud voices in the last couple of years that have said that over and over and over again. Some of which are people like Jacquelyn Gill! And that is a big shift in science. It’s a big shift in science communications.
“I’m glad that we were moving on that before the current [political] atmosphere because it makes it much more difficult to sideline us as, you know, a bunch of eggheads.”
It didn’t take long for our conversation to take a positive swing upward, as Dr. Widga then described possible future projects involving scientists across the country.
His statement “I’ve always been of the opinion that science is a collaborative effort” couldn’t be more apt. And I, for one, cannot wait to see what he and his colleagues work on next.
Artwork by Velizar Simeonovski based on scientific research at Mastodon Lake in Aurora, IL; courtesy of Chris Widga
*****
THANK YOU, Dr. Chris Widga, for your generosity of time and spirit in speaking with me about paleontology and the difficulty you’ve gone through. I loved conversing with you, and I’m eager to read about, watch or see the projects you dive into next!
References:
- Illinois State Museum reopens to public after nine-month shutdown, John Reynolds, The State Journal-Register, July 2, 2016
- Closing decimates Illinois State Museum management, Chris Dettro, The State Journal-Register, December 27, 2015
- Much of Illinois State Museum management leaves amid closure, Chicago-Tribune, December 28, 2015
- Museums caught in middle of state budget showdown, Steve Johnson, Chicago-Tribune, June 25, 2015
- Rainer prepares to close state museums, shutter some prisons to balance ‘phony’ Democratic budget, Becky Schlikerman, Chicago Sun-Times, June 24, 2015
