Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Mineral Museum gets grant for educator-curator



The Mining Foundation of the Southwest will fund an Outreach Program for the Arizona Department of Mining and Mineral Resources museum in Phoenix. The grant will fund an Education Curator for a period of three years and assumes the State will step in and fund the position after that. The MFSW Education Curator will conduct classes on minerals and mining in schools and community colleges throughout Arizona.

Given the State's increasing budget shortfalls, getting new State funds in the next year or two will be a real challenge. The Governor just today put out an announcement describing a 2.8% reduction in the number of state employees since a hiring freeze was imposed this past spring.

DMRR director Madan Singh has told AZGS that we will have to move our Phoenix branch office out of the DMRR building when the new curator is hired. We are considering a couple options for relocating the AZGS office.