The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University is closing its museum at the end of the business day Sept. 30, ending nearly two centuries of public operation at the Philadelphia institution. Its last day open to visitors under regular hours will be Sunday, Sept. 27.
The shutdown reaches beyond the front doors. Drexel said 27 of the Academy’s 80 employees will be impacted, and Scott Cooper stepped down immediately as president and CEO after nearly nine years in the job. The Academy’s museum opened to the public in 1828, making the closure a break with a public role that has survived for generations.
The decision also lands now because the museum had already been operating on a reduced schedule. It had cut back from five days a week to three days a week as of last Oct. 1, then added back Thursdays in July and August for its Dino-Mite Summer program. That makes the closure feel less like a sudden stop than the last step in a long contraction of public hours.
Still, the Academy is trying to draw a line between the museum and the work that built its reputation. Antonio Merlo described the move as a difficult decision made to concentrate resources on the Academy’s enduring scientific assets and research. The institution’s collection includes about 19 million specimens, and its work through the Patrick Center for Environmental Research will continue in the Parkway structure.
That separation is the story’s hard edge. The museum on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway at 19th St. has long been the public face of an institution whose exhibitions ranged from environmental issues to historically significant items tied to Thomas Jefferson and Lewis and Clark, along with the Dinosaur Hall. Closing the museum while preserving the collections and research operation may protect the Academy’s core mission, but it also leaves the public-facing side of the institution far smaller than before.
What comes next is still being worked out. Drexel and Academy leaders said they will continue to identify an appropriate governance structure and interim and permanent leadership for the Academy. For now, the museum’s public days are numbered, even if the science inside the building is not.
