Greeting everyone, from the University Museum and Rowan Oak, where Fall weather has taken a delightfully chilly turn from this Minnesota native’s Nordic-origins perspective. Writing here in the closing days of November gives me calendar leeway to adopt a thankfulness approach and theme to this month’s 5th & University communication to you all.
The Museum and our Faulkner site have so very much to be grateful for, and it all pivots around the exceptional ecosystem of support and thoughtfulness that surrounds us – and the people who make all of that happen. Those of you who have expressed your dedication, and I would add your faith and trust in us by sustaining your Memberships, are due a particular word of deep gratitude. When in 2013 we took a great turn toward broadened access for all by the removal of any admission fee at the Museum, we explicitly wanted there to be no barrier of income to visiting our Museum, and attending our public programs.
But in the process of going to Free Admission for all, we did place a greater budget reliance upon Membership support from our stakeholders. To those many of you reading this who have been long-term members, our deepest of thanks always! To those of you newer to our Membership ranks, please always feel entirely free to let us know how we are doing to meet your needs and your interests. We will always be a more impactful Museum and a stronger Rowan Oak if we maintain a vibrant dialog with you, and listen carefully to your observations and feedback. You may take as my ironclad 100% pledge that we will listen carefully and reflect fully on your input on any subject related to the quality of your experiences with us.
Others to thank – – in complete truth, so many of you. To all who attended our annual fundraising gala Harvest Supper, our profound thanks! This magical evening on the grounds of William Faulkner’s historic house has developed such a deserved reputation for its sublime yet understated grandeur, and from the professional staff perspective for the degree of annual support it provides to our mission fulfillment and our service to community, campus, and region.
This year there was the added high note of great celebration for the publication by the Friends of the Museum of the volume American Landscapes: Meditations on Art & Literature in a Changing World (University Press of Mississippi, 2023). To celebrate this momentous accomplishment three days of program activities were punctuated by a multi-speaker Symposium on November 2nd at the Lyric Theater. The volume is part of the University Press’ ongoing University of Mississippi Museum and Historic Houses Series, and much more can be learned at the Press website, https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/A/American-Landscapes
Thanks are always due in great order of magnitude to many University leaders and colleagues who offer their support throughout the academic year, and who help place us at the core of the University’s Arts & Culture initiatives and program offerings. Chancellor Dr. Glenn F. Boyce is a true champion of the arts who has never failed to think strategically and to act supportively on our behalf. In like manner, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Dr. Noel E. Wilkin is tireless in his dedication to supporting the needs and aspirations of the Museum and Rowan Oak, being a leader of whom we can genuinely observe how essential he is to our success, on a daily basis.
To the Friends of the Museum it’s impossible to overstate the degree to which their ambassadorship and their hundreds of hours of dedicated individual Board service annually have transformed the Museum and the Faulkner historic site over the decades of their existence. Ask any of us, it may be hard to limit the outpouring of gratitude and admiration you will hear from the professional staff and I regarding the transformative impacts of the Friends’ Board under the leadership of their President, Julia Thornton.
And last but very far from least, the staff of the Museum and Rowan Oak. While we constitute ten full-time staff in number, they may certainly be among the most productive museum professional teams of their size to ever have served a campus-based academic museum in this country. It’s genuinely an honor and a privilege to join them every day, and also in the process to observe their mentoring and career-impacting outcomes as they supervise the many University student (undergraduate and graduate) employees, interns, and volunteers who work at the Museum and the Faulkner property throughout the year. This cohort of professional staff is a dynamic, talented, and multi-skilled team, entirely dedicated daily to advancing the University’s mission of Teaching, Research, and Service.
Please enjoy the holidays ahead, and be sure to visit the Museum and Rowan Oak over the course of the full year ahead, recalling always that we are 12-month operations at both of our museum sites. Find additional information at our respective websites https://museum.olemiss.edu/ and https://rowanoak.com/, where our social media platforms are also linked.
Warmest of greetings to you all, with our very sincere gratitude for your inspiring support and your boundless thoughtfulness.
Robert Saarnio
Museum Director
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