UMAC AWARDS 2017: NOMINEES ANNOUNCED

The UMAC Award is presented annually to a university museum or collection in the world whose projects or initiatives demonstrate innovation and creativity, excellence and transferability of ideas that can be adopted by other university museums and collections, and that have significant impact on the host university, the community or society at large.

The nominees for the 2017 UMAC Award are (in alphabetical order):

Oklahoma Native American Youth Language Fair (ONAYLF)

Sam Noble Museum of Natural History, University of Oklahoma

Every spring, hundreds of students, teachers and community members gather at the Sam Noble Museum, University of Oklahoma, for the Oklahoma Native American Youth Language Fair (ONAYLF). The Fair celebrates language diversity, with live presentations of song, speech and story and students compete in material submission categories like poster art, films, books cartoons and advocacy essays.

The Fair has encouraged and supported the efforts of Native communities in Oklahoma and the surrounding region to document, revitalize and perpetuate their ancestral languages. The growth of the Fair over 15 years has established the event as a major celebration of indigenous languages.

Replication of the Curie experiment on radioactivity

University of Rennes

The first quantitative measurement of radioactivity was made in 1898 by Pierre and Marie Curie. They used a prototype experiment based on a quartz balance. These measurements led to the discovery of radium and polonium.

In 2015, Bernard Pigelet and Dominique Bernard achieved the delicate replication of the Curie prototype at the University of Rennes 1. Using an original quartz balance and pieces from historical instruments identified in the collections of the University they could make the experiment fully operational and it is now regularly presented to the public, through a permanent exhibition, online videos and particular events.

The ‘I C Taiwan Exhibition’

National Cheng Kung University Museum

The NCKU Museum, cooperating with National Technical Museum, the City of Prague Museum and the Mendel Museum of Masaryk University in Czech Republic, presents the exhibition ‘I C Taiwan’ as the largest international exhibition organized by a Taiwanese university. The exhibition features a matrix of interdependent themes about Taiwan; the melding of religious cultures, the innovation of traditional techniques in cope with preserving historical and cultural heritages. The Czech museums hosted the exhibition from July 2015 until January 2016.

Media release

The winner of the Award will be announced at the UMAC 2017 General Assembly, 6 September, in Helsinki.

5 July 201711 September 2019

First UMAC Professional Development Workshop

MUSEUM BOOT CAMP: Surviving and Thriving within a University

Jill Hartz, University of Oregon, USA

This workshop is directed to museum professionals (particularly higher education museum professionals).
Participants will be introduced to the importance of aligning the museum/collection’s mission with the university (parent institution) mission; to evaluate the museum/collection’s educational role within the university structure; to apply basic theoretical and methodological skills to the development of a strategic plan, policies, and procedures; and to obtain a working knowledge of mission-driven strategic planning and implementation.

Workshop Participation Fee (includes morning coffee and tea service, light lunch, and workshop materials):
– Regular: 60 EUR
– UMAC members: 50 EUR

Payment by bank transfer — see details in registration form.

Questions?
Barbara Rothermel, UMAC Vice-President, rothermel@lynchburg.edu

Jill Hartz has served as executive director of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon, Eugene, since August 2008. She was director of the University of Virginia Art Museum in Charlottesville from 1997 to 2008 and previously worked in various capacities at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University as well as in the publishing field. She has organized numerous exhibitions, primarily in the contemporary art field, and is the editor of five books, including Rick Bartow: Things We Know But Cannot Explain (co-edited with Danielle Knapp, 2015) and Hindsight-Fore-Site: Art for the New Millennium (University of Virginia Press, 2003). Knapp and Hartz co-curated the Bartow traveling exhibition of the same name. Ms. Hartz is currently president of the national Association of Academic Museums and Galleries and a reviewer for professional museum programs, including accreditation. She received her MA with Honors in English Language and Literature from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland in 1973 and pursued undergraduate studies at Oberlin College in Ohio.

5 July 201711 September 2019

UMAC Image Bank

UMAC is presently updating its website and, simultaneously, organising its archives.

Do you have images from past UMAC Conferences and/or other UMAC activities?

We are especially interested in images from the founding conference in Barcelona in 2001 .

More generally, if you have photos, manuscripts, drawings, ephemera or other materials that you think could be part of the UMAC archives, please get in touch with us!