newsworthyWinter 2012

Flanked by staff, Ron Baillie and Ann Metzger, co-directors of the Science Center, accept the Leading Edge Award.

An Edge Ahead

The international organization of science centers and museums honored Carnegie Science Center with its top award this October for creating a true “community connector” with its Chevron Center for STEM Education and Career Development. The Roy L. Shafer Leading Edge Award for “leading edge business practice” was given to the Science Center by the Association of Science-Technology Centers.

The Chevron STEM Center, launched in 2011 with $1.9 million in funds, includes the Science Center’s long-successful informal science education programs for students, as well as new partnerships with area school districts to develop and strengthen the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) curriculum, a planned database of regional STEM programs, and a public awareness campaign aimed at parents.


275,181

This magic number of objects (plus 1,300 feet of track) makes up Carnegie Science Center’s world-renowned Miniature Railroad & Village®—including more than 250,000 model trees crafted from wild hydrangea plants, 105 animations, 175 automobiles, 75 American flags, and 23,000 “fans” in Forbes Field.


$1 Million

Carnegie Museums recently received a whopping $1 million grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York to upgrade its museums’ technology infrastructure. Over the next year, Carnegie Museums will focus on building network capacity so the four museums can more fully share information —including electronic information about its collections—and create media-rich gallery experiences.


"Visitors were always asking us, ‘Where are the Impressionist paintings?’ Now we can tell them: They’re in gallery 8!"
- Louise Lippincott, Carnegie Museum of Art curator of fine art, at the reopening of four renovated and reinstalled permanent art galleries


Andy Warhol, San Diego Surf, 1968/1996 ©2012 The Andy Warhol Museum. All rights reserved.

Surfs UP

This fall, The Andy Warhol Museum co-hosted the world premiere of the never-before-seen Andy Warhol film, San Diego Surf, at the Museum of Modern Art. Shot in 1968 in the style of his late color films, it features two of Warhol’s Superstars—“Viva at her most radiant and Taylor Mead at his most radical,” says Geralyn Huxley, The Warhol’s curator of film and video. Its storyline, filmed on 16mm by Warhol and Paul Morrissey, features an unhappily married couple with a baby who rent their beach house to a group of surfers. The Andy Warhol Foundation of Visual Arts commissioned Morrissey to complete the editing, based on existing notes and the rough cut. Stay tuned for screening dates in Pittsburgh.


John Wetenhall and Sam Taylor

Change at the Top

This fall brought with it announcements that two senior leaders of Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh had opted to step down from their posts. John Wetenhall, president and CEO of Carnegie Museums, announced in October that he will depart at the end of the year. An art historian and art curator who most recently served as executive director of the John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida, Wetenhall will be returning to Florida. In September, Sam Taylor, director of Carnegie Museum of Natural History, announced his decision to leave Carnegie Museums and return to work advising museums. A marine biologist and science educator by training, Taylor served as an advisor to museums and other scientific organizations prior to joining Carnegie Museums.

“We are extremely fortunate at Carnegie Museums to have such depth in leadership—including our volunteer leadership—given our four-museum structure,” says Lee Foster, chair of the Carnegie Museums board of trustees. “As we now look ahead to this period of transition, we do so with the satisfaction of knowing that our organization is on firm footing, with a strong and talented leadership team in place.”

David Hillenbrand, who served as president of Carnegie Museums for five years prior to Wetenhall’s arrival in March 2011, will step in as interim president effective January 2013. Hillenbrand is a life trustee of Carnegie Museums. Ron Baillie and Ann Metzger, co-directors of Carnegie Science Center, and John Rawlins, curator and chair of Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s section of invertebrate zoology and assistant director of research and collections, are currently leading a Carnegie Museum of Natural History transition leadership team.

 

 

 

Also in this issue:

Our Place in Space  ·  Breaking Out of the Cube  ·  Reimagining Home  ·  Southern Exposure  ·  Directors' Note  ·  Face Time: Tina Kukielski  ·  Artistic License: Hacking Reality  ·  Science & Nature: Going Buggy  ·  Field Trip: Where in the World is Carnegie Museums?  ·  The Big Picture