To the editor:

We are shocked by the recent termination of the KU Museum of Anthropology’s public exhibition and outreach programs, a decision in which faculty and staff were never consulted. This was made when most faculty and graduate students are off campus and in spite of nearly two years work on evaluating and planning the museum’s future direction.

Assurances of university administrators to “protect productive research areas” and to maintain “important teaching units” apparently do not apply to the Museum of Anthropology. It has an ongoing, viable research program, and the public exhibits receive thousands of visitors each year. Funds recouped by closing the exhibits are minimal compared to its research and teaching costs and contributions.

This decision undermines efforts by the museum to strengthen ever fragile links between KU and the Lawrence community. Contrary to the administrators’ view, a museum that closes its public exhibition space is NOT “open.” People who attended “Women’s Works 2000” or the current exhibit, “Early Us (and Them) in Africa,” are unlikely to make appointments to see the museum collections. So, severing this connection to the public assures the museum’s eventual demise by stripping it of its relevance as an institution dedicated to the study and representation of people, in all their diversity across cultures and time.

We are unsure who the big winners will be in removing this institution (and this landmark building) from the public domain, but without doubt the big losers are the people of Kansas.

David Frayer, Sandra Gray,

Department of Anthropology

Kansas University