Something Drastic Ahead For Kelsey?

"I go by the place quite often but Tve never been inside." So goes one of the most frequently heard comments about the University's Francis W. Kelsey Museum of Ancient and Medieval Archeology. The dark stone museum structure is prominently located, directly across S. State from Angelí Hall. Yet it is obscure to many because of its specialization in ancient Roman, Egyptian and Greek household and religious objects. There have been hints lately, under the heading of "routine review," that something drastic might happen to the Kelsey. According to the minutes of the January faculty meeting in the U-M 's College of Literature, Science and the Arts - which administers the museum - consideration has been given to "disbanding the Kelsey" and also to the possibility of "amalgamating the directorship of the Museum of Art (at S. State and S. University) with the Kelsey Museum" in hopes of creating "a stronger museum." Discussion moved along those lines after the LSA faculty learned that a proposal exists to increase the Kelsey's operating appropriation ($74,580 in the current fiscal year) "to make the museum more useful." Any increase in operating funds would be in addition to $120,000 the Kelsey obtained in 1970 by auctioning - in London - an antique firearms collection given to the U-M years ago but never displayed. In the view of Miss Louise A. Shier, the Kelsey's curator and acting director, what the museum needs is a carefully planned "rounding out" of existing collections and, ideally, an annex to house working and library space so the existing upstairs rooms could be used for displays. The annex idea, she observes, looks like "a pipe dream." The Kelsey - which is brightly lighted inside and recently painted, contrary to the impression of mustiness an outside glance can give - is seen by Miss Shier as "intimate, just right for the sort of things we have." Most of the things the Kelsey has virtually demand that a visitor stop and look carefully. Unlike, for example, the dinosaur skeletons at the U-M Exhibit Museum, the Kelsey contains little that can be seen, even superficially, at a glance. As to whether the Kelsey is overspecialized, Miss Shier observed that while some displays are indefinite loans from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the heart of the exhibits and the direction of museum tries to follow reflect the work of Professor Kelsey, who was a member of the U-M Latin faculty from the 1890s until he died during an archeological expedition in Egypt in 1927. "Professor Kelsey feit that if you are going to understand the Roman Empire, you have to know something of its provinces," she observes. From that standpoint, the displays - many of them from an Egyptian community for Roman military veterans that today's urban planners might cali a "new town" - represent "a wide viewpoint." The displays of Egyptian objects, in particular, reflect interests expressed by public school pupils and their teachers who account for many of the approximately 14,000 visitors the Kelsey 1 ceives each year, Miss Shier adds. Some rotating displays - a current one focuses on Roman construction techniques - are chiefly for the benefit of U-M classes, mostly from the Art History Department, which meet in the museum's first-floor classroom. Miss Shier adds that "a small portion" of the firearms auction earnings was spent recently for additional Egyptian objects. The fund from that sale is clearly earmarked for "rounding out" the museum's collections, she states. Shortly after the LSA faculty meeting at which the word "disbanding" was used in discussing the Kelsey, Dean Frank H. T. Rhodes sent all LSA faculty members a letter inviting them to express their view concerning the museum Edward A. Dorty, assistant to the dean, reports that about 60 letters "representing something like 275 individuals, all expressing support for the Kelsey," have now been received. Not all the letters werè in response to Dean Rhodes' letter to the LSA faculty. "They are from all over the country," Dorty states. He adds: "I don't think anyone was serious about closing the Kelsey." He adds, however, that the Kelsey's administrative structure and budgeting are still due for discussion, probably at the LSA Executive Committee's next _ meeting on March 15.