How to remake a museum

SEMO museum master plan creates arts debate

By Mark Bliss ~ Southeast Missourian

The success of Southeast Missouri State University's proposed River Campus museum may rest on child's play, consultants say.

A new master plan for the $5.7 million museum envisions a children's gallery with arts and science activities for hands-on learning, along with space devoted to regional history, temporary and traveling exhibitions of art and occasionally science and history artifacts.

The master plan, drafted by Lord Cultural Resources of Toronto, outlines a broad plan of change emphasizing what it considers the existing museum's strengths along with new features designed to attract more crowds.

The changes would help draw rural, regional residents who tend to have lower levels of education and income and more school groups, the master plan says. Consultants say a children's gallery would help overcome "an elitist image associated with a museum on a university campus."

The master plan, along with two studies on the museum still to come from Lord, costs $185,000.

Bad for fine arts

Ronald Clayton, chairman of the university's art department, said the plan shortchanges the fine arts. The plan has more space for permanent regional history exhibits than it does for traveling exhibitions of fine art.

The museum plan only envisions 2,000 square feet for traveling exhibitions. Clayton would like to see double that amount of space.

If the display space is too small, the museum won't land some world-class art exhibitions, he said.

"We want the space to be able to bring art to the community and bring art to our students," Clayton said.

Ever-changing fine arts exhibits would draw repeat visitors, something permanent history displays won't do, he said.

But Dr. Stanley Grand, museum director, said the new museum won't be an art gallery. "This is not an art museum," he said.

Grand said the museum, which would be part of an arts campus, will focus on regional history, archaeology and fine art. "There is probably in terms of our audience more interest in regional history and archaeology," he said.

Not fine enough

Consultants suggest the university would be better off sticking with regional history, interactive displays and similar themes rather than widely using its fine arts collection. Much of the existing museum's fine art isn't good enough for permanent display in the new museum and should be displayed in university offices, hallways and other areas of campus, consultants say.

Grand said the new museum won't display all the art and historical objects that have been donated over the years. "We should be driven by the stories we are trying to tell rather than the accidents of generosity," he said.

The River Campus board of managers is expected to discuss the plan when it meets today.

Fluid master plan

The master plan was developed with input from university and civic leaders and has been revised several times. "It is not cast in concrete. This has not been adopted by the Board of Regents," Grand said.

Don Dickerson, president of the Board of Regents, likes the plan's emphasis on regional history. "It ties the university to its region," he said.

The museum, consultants say, could have exhibits on the impact of the Mississippi River on the geography and human history of the region, General Ulysses S. Grant and the Civil War, the earthquakes of 1811-1812 and the swamp-clearing efforts of the Little River Drainage District in Southeast Missouri.

Consultants have crafted a plan that calls for building the museum in the northeast area of the River Campus, the arts school that the university wants to build on the site of a former Catholic seminary in Cape Girardeau.

Consultants project the museum could open in the spring of 2005. It would replace the existing university museum that operates out of cramped quarters in a former ballroom in Memorial Hall.

Like the existing museum, admission would be free.

It's expected to attract 32,000 visitors the first year with attendance leveling off to 24,000 by the third year of operation. By comparison, the existing museum drew less than 7,800 visitors in fiscal 2001.

The consultants estimate operating costs will more than double to $367,000, with much of that cost expected to be borne by the university.

Much of the exhibit space -- 3,000 of the 6,300 square feet -- would be devoted to regional history under the consultants' plan. A children's gallery would take up 1,000 square feet.

The entire building would encompass 20,650 square feet with about 15,000 square feet of usable space, about three times the space occupied by the current museum.

Much of the space would be devoted to storage and museum offices. The museum could include a 100-seat theater for lectures and the showing of a film highlighting the region and its history.

Grand said the new museum won't have a gift shop because it wouldn't be profitable.

Native American emphasis

Consultants say the new museum should feature the Thomas Beckwith collection of more than 6,000 Native American artifacts from Southeast Missouri, one of the main attractions of the existing museum.

Forty-two plaster statues that were exhibited at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis also are featured in the existing museum and would be displayed in some fashion in the new museum.

The entire River Campus development is expected to cost nearly $37 million, half of it from the state and the rest from private donations and Cape Girardeau city tax money. Nearly $4.3 million would go for museum construction. Another $803,549 in equipment purchases and $600,000 in architectural fees would come out of a $2.6 million, three-year federal grant that the university has received for the museum project.

Grant money already goes to pay the salaries of two new museum employees -- curator Jim Phillips, who has a background in archaeology, and museum educator Andrea Morrill -- and the cost of planning work. About $350,000 is being spent in this first year of the grant.

Phillips also has expertise in Native American cultures of Southeast Missouri, which the new museum is aiming to emphasize.

Phillips began work in February, while Morrill started her job this week.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123