Students, staff and community members gathered to discuss changes involved in the “Renew Mizzou” project at a forum July 17.
The forum was held in Jesse Wrench Auditorium and hosted by the Faculty Council.
Prominent university administrators attended the forum to present plans for the project answer questions. The presentations focused on the futures of the museums currently located within the halls.
Vice Chancellor of Administrative Services Jacquelyn Jones said moving the Museum of Art and Archeology off campus to Mizzou North was the only option. If the museum wasn’t moved, she said, it would have closed with Pickard Hall.
“There was a time we didn’t think we could keep the Museum of Art and Archeology open because it requires so much criteria for a new location,” Jones said. “Finding Mizzou North, which met most of the criteria, allowed us to move ahead with decommissioning Pickard Hall and allows us to keep the museum open.”
Jones and the other speakers agreed the museum needed to be moved from Pickard Hall to allow the radiation and structural testing the building needs to be completed. But there was some mixed reactions to moving the museum off of central campus grounds.
“As a manager working with people who I respect and admire, I can’t sleep well at night knowing they are working in an environment with high levels of radiation,” said Alex Barker, director of the Museum of Art and Archeology. “Moving away from everything we’ve worked so hard to build to better the curriculum in the school is hard for me.”
Barker said it will be hard for him to move off campus with the museum, but it was an easy choice to make.
The audience present during the forum also voiced some concern about why all three projects — renovations in Pickard, Jesse, and Swallow halls — had to occur at the same time.
Deputy Provost Ken Dean responded to these concerns and said by shutting down all the buildings at once, the construction will get done quicker.
“With having “swing” space available we have been enabled to only have to shut down Jesse Hall one time by doing all three projects at once instead of shutting it down multiple times,” he said.
Additional audience concerns included not having a specific timeline, having access to the museum’s content to use as teaching supplements, reintegrating the museum back onto campus and the ability to attract future donors for the program.
Overall, the most prominent issue brought up was how the museum will be brought back to the main campus in the future.
Jones said the process of moving the museum back to campus will be a long process.
“We have a number of building issues on this campus,” Jones said. “All of them are high priorities and we care about all of them. It’s not that we don’t care and we aren’t trying, it’s just a hard situation.”
Moving forward, the panel said that before a concrete plan about the future of the museums and the spaces they occupied is set, testing in Pickard Hall needs to be concluded. Only after testing will many of the audience’s questions be answered, Director of the Museum of Anthropology Michael O’Brien said.
“We, personally, may not be back here in five to ten years from now, but it’s very easy to say that in 20-25 years we, as a university, will be back in Pickard Hall,” he said. “We will be doing what we can to make life great in those museums in the mean time, but we will also do what we can to allow for future possibilities to present themselves.”
