Executive Director’s Message
Written by Larry Tise in the From the Executive Director category and the Spring 1985 issue Topics in this article:With the encouragement of our excellent Commission and the additional critical support of Governor Thornburgh and the General Assembly, over the past years we have been able to deal effectively with most of the critical property, collection and program issues facing the Historical and Museum Commission. We are now in a position to begin assuming the role of statewide leadership which we should, perhaps, have exercised throughout the years. The Commission has initiated movement in this direction by establishing long-range goals and priorities which lay the groundwork for a more effective relation-ship with Pennsylvania’s large historical and cultural community.
The key to the success of the Commission’s grand plans and hopes for the future can best be expressed through the term “networking.” We hope the Commission can become the convener, listener, facilitator, spokesman, activator, conduit and communicator for the several thousand organizations and institutions working in the realm of historical and cultural affairs in Pennsylvania and for the several hundred thousand individuals who participate as board members, volunteers and members. It is our fondest dream to establish programs and forms of association that will enable the Commission to better reflect and fulfill the aspirations of broad segments of the state’s historical and cultural community.
We will be fostering networks in all areas represented by Commission programmatic responsibilities as we have long been doing for local historical organizations through the Pennsylvania Federation of Historical Societies, which will receive even greater support in the future. Through the establishment of the Preservation Fund of Pennsylvania and support for the Pennsylvania Preservation Trust, we hope to begin more effectively uniting the growing number of local historic preservation groups. Through our statewide survey of local government records, we have begun to establish networks with county governments and their elected officers for the preservation of historical records.
Our recently established Applied History Program, the largest of any state historical agency in the nation, has enabled us to train and hire more than a hundred college and graduate interns over the past year and brought us into league with college and university departments of history, art, architecture, natural history, planning and related studies. To confirm this relationship, we have begun convening an annual meeting of the chairs and representatives of these departments from around the state.
In the realm of networking historic site and museum institutions, we have established a museums advisory committee representing the broad range of museum institutions in Pennsylvania. Through this organization we have already begun outlining areas for cooperation and collaboration in order to benefit the five hundred such institutions throughout the state.
As time progresses, we will attempt to establish networks with all organizations in the state whose interests and programs run parallel to those of the Commission. In order for us to realize this dream, we must first identify every such organization, locate its officers and mailing address, understand its aspirations and problems, and solicit its participation. In the certain chance that readers of Pennsylvania Heritage belong to organizations that could benefit from these efforts, we invite letters and calls to insure their involvement. In its purest form, a network is born out of just this kind of interaction and cooperation. We invite you to become a part of it.
Larry E. Tise
Executive Director