News

Block Closed for Holiday

The Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art will be closed on Friday, July 4. The Museum will reopen to the public on Saturday, July 5, at Noon.

People at the Block

Block Director Elected President of National Academic Museum Organization

David Alan Robertson, the Block Museum’s Ellen Philips Katz Director, has been elected president of the Association of College and University Museums and Galleries, the academic museum affiliate organization of the American Association of Museums.

The Association of College and University Museums and Galleries (ACUMG) sponsors annual conferences on topics of importance to academic museums. This year’s conference took place April 26 in Boulder, Colorado, and addressed interdisciplinary programming at campus museums.

At the annual ACUMG business lunch, Robertson laid out a series of goals for his three-year tenure as president. These included increasing membership, addressing the national accreditation standards for academic museums, and seeking systemic solutions to the sale of collections by universities for purposes unrelated to their museums’ missions.

In addition to Robertson, Brent Tharp, director of the Georgia Southern University Museum, was elected vice-president and Michiko Okaya, director of the Williams Center Gallery, Lafayette College, was elected treasurer.

Organized in 1980, ACUMG addresses issues relevant and unique to college and university museums and galleries of all disciplines including art, history, natural history, and science. ACUMG membership includes 400 academic museums from across the country. Next year’s conference will take place at the University of Pennsylvania.