SUNDAY 3RD JULY, 2016 – UWI TODAY
15
HERITAGE
Fact:
There is almost no way into this story
that does not start with a joke. But which ones?
The subject matter has been fodder for comedy
forever (let’s get near to literal about “forever”):
Universities are what’s left of the Paleozoic era.
Museums are the places where possibly
interesting things go to die.
Have you ever met a tenured professor or a
curator whose closest relatives didn’t all die in
the last ice age?
Good. That’s taken care of. Aren’t you happy?
How many jokes about fossils are there, really?
You can thank me later.
Dr Allison Ramsay
from the History Department and
Mike Rutherford from Life Sciences agree to stuff me into
the latter’s perilously cluttered office. Rutherford is UWI’s
Zoology curator and deputy chair of the Campus Museum
Project.
Yes, exactly as you read it. There will be a great curating
of objects, artefacts and…stuff that speak to the past of the
St. Augustine Campus. As far back as when we started as
the University College of the West Indies. And when we
transitioned to the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture
(ICTA). And everything thereafter.
Dr Ramsay describes the University as a “lived
experience” which is a really nifty phrase because it counters
all my barbs about campuses and museums as old and
musty and moth-eaten. The University is not simply a
place generously donated by the State as a space to house
its collection of tertiary level students and all the books
they need. People – students in particular – live here. And
living means something: means accommodation and food,
schedules, social and cultural experiences. The reality
of parking spaces (the likelihood of no parking spaces).
You find mentors, friends and romance. You loathe your
department head, make new friends and swear off romance.
You live.
The Campus Cases project is an attempt to show how
life at UWI, St. Augustine has evolved. Rutherford describes
it as: “Taking theMuseum to the people…Educating people
without them knowing it.”
These display cases (Yes, Virginia, they really are cases)
will be found loitering in offices and in well-trafficked
corridors. They will display anything from recipes from the
cafeterias of yore, to the bell that was rung to signal the end
of library hours. This bell was featured last year in Emerita
Professor Bridget Brereton’s excellent curtain-raiser for the
proposed University Museum. I can’t get an example from
anyone of what will be enshrined without a mention of this
bell. Either this bell was the most abhorred or beloved thing
in our history or it’s just one of those inexplicable incidents
of celebrity like Kanye.
What can these cases be thinking, inserting themselves
randomly into spaces frequented by decent, entirely
uninterested students and staff? As with humans who
behave in a similar way, there are several reasons.
Let’s Case the Joint:
A Case for the Campus Cases
B Y A N U L A K H A N
Campus
artefacts
Reason 1: Assertion and Visibility.
They will not be
ignored. They have stories to tell. You, casual drifter, will
listen. If you see a glass box in an unlikely place with a
small collection of historic items, can you not stop to look?
If you can, you really need to rethink how you’re using the
curiosity element of your brain.
Reason 2: Education.
Think of them as harmless sidewalk
evangelists. Not the kinds who stalk you and menace you
with umbrellas. These cases just want you to know about
your legacy, want you to think about what UWI’s history
means.
Reason 3: Vagrancy.
Except, rather than desperate, these
cases are very creative solutions to their housing crisis.
The UWI Museum is homeless. As in, nowhere has been
designated for the housing of this collection. In spite of
Professor Brereton’s article. In spite of plans during UWI’s
fiftieth anniversary celebrations in 2010. Indeed, against
ancient evidence cited by Brereton that the floor plans for
ICTA’s admin building was preparing such a place.
The Campus Museum Committee is chaired by
Dr Glenroy Taitt, head of West Indiana and the Special
Collections at the Alma Jordan Library. With his team, Dr.
Taitt has achieved withWest Indiana the most inconceivable
of things: he made it accessible. You can, like, use it. It does
not bode well if he can’t force the museum into residence.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of the cases do end up at the library.
UWI St Augustine has other museums. The Anatomy
Museum and the Pathology Museum are not open to the
public. Considering these disciplines and who’s likely to
be attracted to them (medics and serial killers), I say, fair
enough. The Zoology Museum, under the stewardship of
Mr. Rutherford, is open to visitors. Can’t vouch for how
much you’ll see in there since so much of it seems to be
lying about on his office shelves daring you to knock them
over. The National Herbarium of Trinidad and Tobago has
an inviting website but I’m still not clear if I’m invited to
the physical premises. Museums! Pull yourselves together!
How could I have thought this was a joking matter?
Our museums need us and we need them. Sure, it’s possible
to go through life without them and sort of manage. It’s
also possible to be just fine after a nephrectomy. Museums,
especially ones that hold the promise of great range and
variety, make us alive to our own possibilities. Maybe all
you do is stop and read one of the signs in a Campus Case.
And maybe it’s a sixty-year-old publication from, say, the
biological society. And say, you’re currently thinking about
the history and development of the sciences in the West
Indies, maybe you’d be interested enough to find out if
there are more papers like it. Better, suppose it’s something
like a collection of old pens. Which makes you think of
calligraphy. Which makes you think of Medieval bibles.
Whichmakes you realize that is what you forgot to consider
for a linguistics paper. For the love of all the gods of learning,
at least be not dull and boring.
Or, have a kidney removed and offer it up for adoption
— it won’t make you more interesting, but at least it will do
some good to someone else.
