2017 Report to the Community

2017 REPORT TO THE COMMUNITY “ THE BURKE MUSEUM CARES FOR AND SHARES NATURAL AND CULTURAL COLLECTIONS “The mission statement is the beating heart of a museum.” SO ALL PEOPLE CAN LEARN, AMERICAN ALLIANCE OF MUSEUMS BE INSPIRED, GENERATE KNOWLEDGE, FEEL JOY AND HEAL.” BURKE MUSEUM MISSION STATEMENT, 2017 DEAR BURKE COMMUNITY, Every day, I see the steady progress of the New Burke building taking shape. As communities at home and around the globe grapple with the effects of tumultuous social, political and natural forces, it gives me a reason to be optimistic. The New Burke is more than just a building, it’s a physical manifestation of our mission, and a new dedication to transparency and community involvement. The New Burke will connect people to the research, science and stories we need to understand changes in the world—and how to make positive change in the future. Bringing the New Burke to life will require shifts in nearly every aspect of the museum. More than a decade of planning has laid the foundation for this transformation. Today, the Museum needs a mission statement that captures its bold vision. This spring, the Burke engaged hundreds of stakeholders through online and in-person interviews to ask how the Museum can best meet their needs. The new mission statement reaffirms the Burke’s role as the steward of the Washington state collections of natural history and culture. Most importantly, it reflects our equal commitment to sharing the collections, so that everyone has the opportunity to learn, be inspired, generate knowledge, feel joy, heal—and so much more. Thank you for your support. Without you, none of this would be possible. With gratitude, Dr. Julie K. Stein Burke Museum Executive Director Coral Reef Photos/Barry Brown WHEN NATALIE WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL, she came to the University of Washington campus for Polynesian Day. At the time, she knew one Pacific Islander kid—her brother. That day, as she watched Pacific Islander college students dancing, she saw community. When Natalie came to UW, upperclassmen encouraged her to take classes in anthropology, study Pacific Island culture through objects at the Burke, and become a member of the “Research Family.” When the Research Family saw Moana, a movie about a young woman navigating the geography and traditions of the Pacific Islands on a mission to save her people, they saw representation. They saw a celebration of living cultures. They also saw a story told from a Western perspective. When the students researched objects from the Burke collections and details and myths from Moana, they found intersection with and divergence from the true cultures of Oceania. On October 9, they celebrated Indigenous Peoples Day by sharing their research with Burke visitors. That day, they told the stories from their own perspectives. When the Research Family studies objects at the Burke, they see a way to take ownership of their heritage, their culture, and their futures. When you take ownership of your education, you learn a lot about yourself. Cathy Morris SHE COULD BE SHARLENE, growing up in Venezuela, exploring nature, watching animals, collecting shells, bugs, rocks and plants. She didn’t know any scientists who looked like her, but her mother and grandmother taught her that hard work and perseverance can get you far. She could be Desiree, who always thought college was about following a set schedule and ticking off requirements, until she joined the Micronesian Islands club, came to the Burke to talk about objects, and saw a path to using her education to bring cultural strength and knowledge to her community. She could be Itzue, searching the Mexican jungle in the dead of night, lifting a leaf and realizing she was looking at a species that hadn’t been seen for more than 50 years. She could be Prim, who dedicated her career to medical research but never gave up her childhood dream of digging in the dirt. Now she’s spending her retirement revealing a T. rex, one tooth at a time. She could be a curator of mammals, a cultural researcher, a zoologist, a fossil preparator. She could be any of us, at the moment of inspiration. She can be anything she wants to be. Andrew Waits THERE ARE WAYS OF KNOWING. For more than a thousand years, Coast Salish people raised a special breed of dogs. They were small, with pointed ears and curled tails. They were husbanded to protect their long, thick hair, so it could be shorn and spun into wool. They were part of culture, part of everyday life. George Vancouver wrote of them in his journals. They were painted and photographed. 150 years later, they were gone. European contact disrupted breeding practices and weaving traditions. Objects were lost or destroyed. Time passed and some came to doubt the history of the woolly dogs. But what has always been known can be learned again. Last year, a spinning expert studying Coast Salish blankets and robes at the Burke noticed an unusual material exposed by a small tear in one of the blankets. This spring, researchers at the University of Victoria’s Advanced Microscopy Facility tested the blanket and confirmed the presence of woolly dog hair in the fibers. Salish community members came to see the blanket, hear the researchers’ stories, and share their own stories of weaving and woolly dogs. The blanket was blessed, greeted as family, touched. There are ways of knowing. To hold something is to know it in the deepest way of all. Rachel Ormiston THAT’S THE FEELING YOU GET when you get your hands dirty. And your clothes are stiff with dust and it’s blazing hot and you’re doing something so great you don’t even care. That’s spending your summer on a paleontology dig in northeast Montana, where the only traffic jams are the deer on the road at dusk, where you come over the crest of a hill and the badlands suddenly assert themselves, proud hills stripped bare of everything but the marks of time. Where the dinosaurs lived their last days on earth. That’s your first day at the T. rex site. The anticipation of standing around, getting your gear and your crew together before you slip under the barbed wire fence and make your way through boulders and sagebrush, watching for rattlesnakes. Before you pick out your spot in the quarry, get out your chisel and your brush, and realize you’re sharing ground with one of the fiercest creatures the world has ever known. That’s realizing you’re not the only one who loves the things you love. It’s finding a place where you can trade your time, and your energy (and your sweat!) for learning something new every day. That’s being part of something bigger than you. That’s joy. Mark Stone/University of Washington IT WAS ONLY THE FOURTH TIME a Baird’s beaked whale was stranded in Washington. The whale was found near Westport in May 2015. She had recently given birth, and died from an infection in her pelvis. Museum staff and volunteers rushed to the coast to bury the whale, where it decomposed underground. Two years later they returned, braving the slime and the smell to unearth and clean the bones, and transport them to the Burke. For most, it would be an unenviable, perhaps even unthinkable task. For them, it was a labor of love. Baird’s beaked whales swim far offshore in deep water and avoid ships. Because they are so rarely seen, much about the biology of Baird’s beaked whales is essentially unknown. Countries across the North Pacific hunted them through the mid-20th century, and they are still hunted commercially in Japan. The International Union for Conservation of Nature considers the species data-deficient: there is not enough information available to determine their conservation status. The specimen at the Burke will be one of only ten in museum collections in the U.S. It will be a critical contribution to research. And when the skeleton hangs in the grand lobby of the New Burke, it will be invaluable to us all: a reminder of the way nature is grand and fragile at the same time. A reminder of what’s at risk. A reminder of what’s worth saving. Dennis Wise/University of Washington BURKE MUSEUM FISCAL YEAR 2017 Period ending 6/30/2017 BY THE NUMBERS With the support of museum donors, members, visitors, partners, the University of Washington, and the State of Washington, the Museum’s financial health remained 104,000 VISITORS to the Burke in 2017 stable in fiscal year 2017. REVENUE EXPENSES 90,000 PRE-K–20 STUDENT EXPERIENCES UW/Arts & Sciences 3,473,147 Research & Collections 5,924,317 delivered through Burke Education programs UW In-kind Support 3,133,105 Interpretive Services 1,909,410 28,250 On-site at the Burke Museum Restricted Funds Released 1,213,393 Administration 1,029,003 Earned Income 857,212 61,750 Across Washington state Education 869,924 Endowment 856,767 Fundraising 641,241 Gifts 824,813 13,700 UW STUDENT VISITS Total 10,358,437 Total 10,373,895 Change in Net Assets (15,458) 28 NEW SPECIES identified by Burke researchers 6% 8% 8% 20,000 SPECIMENS loaned to researchers around the world 8% 34% 10% 8% 5,800 RESEARCHERS & COMMUNITY MEMBERS 57% visiting the Burke to study collections 12% 19% 30% 19,600 VOLUNTEER HOURS dedicated to the Burke THANK YOU TO OUR SUPPORTERS 2016–2017 $5,000 TO $9,999 D.V. & Ida J. McEachern Charitable Trust Judith Hance Jennifer Schubert & Rob Vander Stoep Kate Duncan Julien & Bruce Wiley Mindi Katzman ANNUAL DONORS Tom Alberg & Judi Beck Doug & Thelma McTavish Richard & Marilyn Hanson Scott Sommers Kathleen Dwyer Robert Wiley III Joan Kelday Michael Bonsignore National Endowment for the Arts Hamilton & Nancy Harris Elizabeth & Matthew Steinbrueck

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