[PCA] Norton Brown Herbarium may close

[Steve Erickson]

Public pressure is your best bet, along with the press.

And reach out not just to the obvious (i.e. conservation groups, 
including those that are not necessarily focused on veg). Make a 
list of the obvious allies, from Natural Heritage to Audubon. 
Pick up the phone. Ask friendlies if they know who are good 
politicians and reporters to go to. Then expand the circle. Also 
go for scientists that are not botanists and ecologists. Get 
some cancer researchers to do a sign on letter and make sure it 
goes to the press and friendly legislators.

Remember, the squeaky wheel gets the grease and the most 
obnoxious annoying loudest wheel gets the most lubrication. This 
isn’t science, its straight out politics. And don’t spare 
the hyperbole. An herbarium is a library of nature. Surely they 
wouldn’t burn a library or fail to repair a leaking library 
roof? Finding other funding is not your goal. Your goal should 
be to generate enough political heat so the university 
administration does its job and finds the funding.



-Steve

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On 10/22/16 at 9:37 AM, sylvan.kaufman at gmail.com (Sylvan 
Kaufman) wrote:

>I learned this week from the Director of the Norton Brown Herbarium at
>University of Maryland that it will close unless the Director can find
>$100,000 in operating expenses each year starting in 2017.  This herbarium
>is the state herbarium for Maryland .
>
>Does anyone have advice about how to either find outside funding or
>convince the University that they should fund the operating budget?  I have
>put the message out to several Maryland conservation-related listserves in
>the hopes that people will write letters of support to the Chair of the
>Plant Sciences department and Dean of the College of Agriculture and
>Natural Resources that house the herbarium.
>
>Thanks,
>Sylvan
>
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Frosty Hollow Ecological Restoration
Helping Nature Heal
Box 53
Langley, WA  98260
(360) 579-2332   FH at Whidbey.com
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