President Nellis appoints OHIO Museum Complex Planning Team
Photographer: Ben SiegelOHIO Professor Nancy Stevens (right) speaks with bestselling author Andrea Wulf (center) in one of the newly renovated rooms in the Kennedy Museum of Art. Professor Viorel Popescu (left) looks on.
President M. Duane Nellis has appointed a planning team to make recommendations for ways the “OHIO Museum Complex Initiative” can advance Ohio University’s Strategic Pathways through a collections-based academic teaching and learning environment, serving as a key platform highlighting campus and community strengths through exhibitions and education/outreach programs.
The OHIO Museum Complex expands upon and complements the existing Kennedy Museum of Art on The Ridges, bringing together cultural and natural history collections from across the campus into a vibrant collections-based teaching, research and exhibits space. Featuring digital collections and key specimen acquisitions, the Museum Complex will expand upon the notion of The Ridges Green, as outlined through The Ridges master planning efforts. This space will serve as a state-of-the-art innovation campus for indoor and outdoor place-based learning and discovery, a transformative learning space to experiment, collaborate and excel in a creative community focused on innovation and connection.
“This initiative dovetails and supports our strategic pathways focused on building an engagement ecosystem, with activities that enhance local quality of life,” President Nellis explains. “The Museum Complex will connect exhibitions and innovative learning laboratories with outdoor experiential learning on The Ridges trail systems, offering synergies with the OHIO Observatory and the OHIO Land Laboratory and the Kennedy Museum of Art.”
In consultation with campus and community stakeholders (which include representatives from throughout the University), planning team members have been charged by President Nellis with developing the OHIO Museum Complex Strategic Plan, which will include a recommendation for cross-college interdisciplinary governance, priorities for facilities renovation, sustainability planning, and policies/procedures related to the OHIO Museum Complex exhibitions planning and collections use for research and teaching. The planning team members will advance their recommendations to President Nellis.
Serving as co-chairs of the team are Nancy J. Stevens, Professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, and Ed Pauley, Director of the Kennedy Museum of Art.
“The OHIO Museum Complex combines vibrant exhibit galleries and expanded curatorial space to support pivotal collections from across campus and the region”, said Stevens. “Collaborations across fields help to enhance science literacy, and engage with contemporary issues, promoting health and wellness for the Ohio University community, and throughout the region.”
The OHIO Museum Complex Planning Team comprises of Nancy Stevens, (HCOM) Professor and co-Chair of Museum Complex Advisory Group; Ed Pauley, (COFA) Director, KMA, co-Chair Museum Complex Advisory Group; John Bowditch, (SCRIPPS) Director and co-Founder of GRID Lab; Geoff Dabelko, (GVS) Professor of Environmental Studies; Alycia Stigall, (CAS) Professor of Geology; Danny Twilley, (PATT) Instructor of Recreation, Outdoor Education & Ecotourism; and Sarah Wyatt, (CAS) Professor of Plant Biology.
Photographer: Ben SiegelYoung artists draw their visual conceptions of what the ballroom in the Museum Complex should look like after it is renovated.
Photographer: Ben SiegelParticipants at the University's BioBlast event last spring search for plants, animals and fungi. The program is part of the University's plan for expanded use of the Ridges as a learning laboratory.