5th & University / September 2024
Director’s Letter
Warmest of greetings everyone, from your University of Mississippi Museum. The weather may not yet say “Fall” but the return to campus of record numbers of students and faculty definitely does – – as also does the return of a certain outdoor sport whose field of play is a gridiron and whose game-action focal point was once made from the inflated bladders of a pig.
We celebrate this season with particular energy and passion annually, in no small degree because the University’s students, faculty, professional staff, and research scholars are our beloved campus community of peers and friends. Their Fall return marks not only a seasonal and notable shift in the vibrancy of the whole campus, but also because we consider the bar raised very high for the quality of Exhibitions, Programs, and Educational offerings we offer in the launch period of the Academic Year.
You all realize we are an Open Year-Round / 12 month museum but what may not be apparent on the surface of things is how much intentionality we devote to developing these activities to a very high degree of well-refined professionalism each Fall. You may not have thought of this but annually and (almost invariably) among the major Exhibitions of any calendar year, the largest and most ambitious by our Museum are those which are installed for and exhibited through the Fall semester.
To that end, come on over and we’ll show you around! Fall is a truly great time to visit an academic museum on any campus in the country, including ours
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We also want to celebrate our Members and the entire campus and Oxford community with our Annual Membership Party – to be held this year on the evening of Tuesday October 1st, 5:30PM to 8:00PM. Great food and beverage are a hallmark of our membership parties as most of you will know, but unique this year is the Party’s celebration also of three (3) major new exhibitions : ‘Mediterranea, American Art from the Graham D. Williford Collection’ / ‘By M.B. Mayfield’ / and ‘Harvest Supper Auction Artworks’. Whether current Member, lapsed Member looking to renew, or potential New Member – – all are welcome to attend.
I do want to add a word about the high significance to us of our Membership program itself. Though now 11 years’ past, we established Free Admission for All in 2013, with the aspiration that there will be no income barrier for any visitor, to partake of this Museum’s offerings and programs. Open access to the entire community is a value we hold dear, and we are very proud to be in a position to offer it.
But along with dropping the earned income that Admission fees once provided came the need to augment income streams from other sources. Membership immediately became a much more integral and important funding source, on which we’ve placed greater reliance budgetarily . So rest assured that your membership has great meaning for us across so many dimensions of our functioning, and also for our growth and the realization of our broad ambitions.
Members, and future members alike – -please come join us on October 1st, we will be so happy to see you!
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One closing thought about the Free Admission for All status that we uphold. In the U.S. museum field there is a wide spectrum of approaches to establishing Admission Fee levels. In our Mississippi and adjacent southeast region, peer museums in Jackson, Memphis, and New Orleans have adult admission fees of $15, $18, and $13.50 respectively. There is nothing inherently wrong with such fee levels, and nationally many of the major museums are even higher-admission. It is merely an alternate approach, with value-added lifelong learning opportunities being the common ground that all great museums offer their communities.
We stand proudly alongside the Arkansas Museum of Fine Art in Little Rock, and the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama in their own Free Admission values and practices. Arkansans and Alabamians join North Mississippians in having unfettered access to their signature fine art institutions.
Another among so many reasons to thank you for sustaining your University of Mississippi Membership!
See you on October 1st, and throughout the Fall!
Robert Saarnio
Museum Director