Natural History Museum head quits in clash with Tel Aviv University

The longtime chair of Tel Aviv University’s Steinhardt Museum of Natural History has resigned, along with seven board members, in protest of a reorganization plan she argues will strip the institution of its academic standing.

Prof. Tamar Dayan spent nearly 30 years leading the moves to establish a museum to unite the university’s scientific collections, which hold more than 5.5 million items.

She has served as the founding chairperson since the museum’s 2018 opening, in addition to her roles as curator of terrestrial vertebrates, a professor at the School of Zoology, and chair for Environmental Conservation Research.

Dayan’s vision, shared by several national and international committees of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities over the years, was for a national museum anchored at Tel Aviv University.

A national museum serves the general public and plays a significant educational role. It holds national archives on biodiversity and natural heritage, conducts research, and supports state-level environmental management and policy-making.

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A university museum is usually focused more on a faculty’s research and classroom teaching, providing laboratories for faculty and graduate students. It operates within the university’s hierarchy and strategic goals.

Dayan’s vision advanced five years ago when the university recognized the museum as an independent academic institution authorized to recruit its own senior academic staff.

But a review the university commissioned earlier this year from Shaldor, a consultancy, has prompted what Dayan views as an unacceptable step backward.

The university’s administration has decided to transfer the museum’s academic staff into a new department within the Faculty of Life Sciences. This department, to be headed by the museum’s chairperson, will have to report not only to the rector, as it has until now, but also to the faculty dean.

Dismayed by the decision, Dayan decided to leave this week and has declined the university’s request to extend her tenure by two years to manage the transition. She will be replaced by Prof. Yoni Belmaker, the outgoing head of the School of Zoology.

In a presentation to the university’s senate last week, Dayan said, “Today, the Steinhardt Museum fulfills all the roles expected of a university-based national natural history museum: documentation, research, teaching, and public education, with an emphasis on taxonomy (classifying organisms) and its applications for surveying and monitoring the state of Israel’s biodiversity.”

The museum served a wide range of public agencies, she went on, such as KKL-JNF (Jewish National Fund), the Nature and Parks Authority, the planning authorities, and several ministries, and hosted hundreds of local and international scientists and graduate students annually.

She warned that separating the senior faculty from the museum would reduce its scientific capabilities and that integrating the museum into the life sciences faculty would make it harder to recruit academics from other fields.  Meanwhile, the museum’s collections, curators, and various units, among them the Open Landscapes Institute, the National Center for Aquatic Ecology, and Hamaarag—Israel’s National Ecosystem Assessment would lose their research status within the higher-education system, she charged.

Tel Aviv University rector Noga Kronfeld-Schor told The Times of Israel that the university management had hired the consultancy firm to review global models of university-museum relationships, and had spent “hundreds of hours” consulting with faculty.

She said that the university wanted to advance the museum and would be giving tenure to some of the museum’s faculty who are currently on annual renewable contracts.

“Tamar did amazing work,” she added. “The museum is fabulous. There is nothing that will harm the museum, and all the researchers will stay [physically] where they are.”