Saturday, August 20, 2011

Arizona Historical Society trying to boost revenue


A recent job posting reads as follows (italics added):

The Arizona Historical Society is currently looking for a Museum Education Curator to join their team.  In conjunction with the Director of Education and Outreach Division, the position holder will coordinate the Southern Division office. The education position is responsible for running several revenue generating programs, such as Speakers Series, Teacher professional development workshops, and summer youth programs, in three museums: the Arizona History Museum in Tucson, the AHS Museum at Papago Park in Tempe, and the new Arizona Experience Museum in Phoenix.

The Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum, which the AHS acquired and closed, provided free education programs to schools at no cost to taxpayers.  Those science education programs served tens of thousands of students every school year.

The AHS plans to use the mineral museum building for the $15 million Arizona Experience Museum.

Is the AHS sincerely interested in education, or is it merely trying to generate revenue to help support its excessive overhead?

5 comments:

  1. They sure need help at the Papago Park facility. I thought that they had advertised a long time ago for an education curator and had a hire for that position. Maybe they promoted that person to Director. Where are they getting all the money for these positions? The former Mineral Museum only had one government paid salary position (curator) and pulled in 50,000 people and educated 25,000 students. I guess Dr. Woosley needs to take a class in money management. Some people have no money sense. Wonder why the state government is in financial woes!

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  2. Actually, the mineral museum operated for an entire school year with no government paid employees at all, and could have continued doing so indefinitely.

    The AHS on the other hand, is hiring multiple state paid employees and is NOT continuing the education programs.

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  3. Why would Woosley raise money she gets 85% of her money from the state. Her Board doesnt raise much. Ever see her "work a room" for public relations or raise money or just be nice to people (much less her staff. No way she can do it. Might as well as hired a Phd. rock.

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  4. So wouldn't be the time where they tell the public just how many kids they serve? How many kids go to the AHS in Tucson and Papago Park?

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  5. There seems to be no desire (as stated by the post) to look for any funding other than the same trite gov. handouts ie. grants.
    Until AHS hires people who are not social miscreants and begin hiring people who have personality, aptitude to communicate with other people besides those in their internal fiefdom, and oh what the heck...an actual interest in AZ history, the AHS is a dead corpse waiting for burial.
    As far as Anne Woosley working a room, what a chuckle of an idea. The only saving grace when Woosley enters a room is that she will be leaving rather quickly. Frau Woosley has no time for the public and their interests are verboten.

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