Penn Museum aims for larger crowds

Traditionally a research-oriented facility, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has created numerous initiatives for the upcoming school year in hopes of appealing to the public beyond its educational role.

Starting this month, the Penn Museum will offer extended weekday hours and new Wednesday evening programs. It will also feature a newly renovated Pepper Mill Cafe and a newly landscaped and furnished garden, according to Pam Kosty, spokeswoman for the Penn Museum.

The museum will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, with the exception of Wednesdays, which will feature P.M. @ Penn Museum — a set of evening programs that range from free tours, world music, dance performances, instructional dance, yoga, drawing classes, Quizzo and more.

“The P.M. @ Penn Museum programming will transform the [Penn Museum] into a place to relax, listen to music, dine and socialize,” said College sophomore Paul Mitchell, who is pursuing a major in physical anthropology and works at the Penn Museum.

Nursing sophomore Jenny Kim said that while she may go to the museum for exciting new exhibits, the extra hours of operation are unlikely to influence her plans. She is one of many Penn students who do not regularly visit the Penn Museum.

“It is a real travesty that some Penn students never see the museum after their [New Student Orientation] toga party,” Mitchell said.

College junior Anna-Lara Cook, who also works for the Penn Museum, said she hopes the new attractions will draw more people from the Penn community and introduce the Penn Museum’s offerings to a more diverse crowd.

According to Cook, Penn Museum’s new features will appeal to the young professionals of Philadelphia, — targeting “the same audience that came to the [Silk Road Summer Nights] music series on Wednesday nights this past summer.”

The Summer Nights music series was an event that featured musicians from countries along the Silk Road, activities, a bar and open galleries on the third floor of the Penn Museum.

In conjunction with Penn’s Year of Water initiative, the museum is offering a special display, featuring one of the world’s most famous flood tablets, and an afternoon symposia for the public.

The administrators of the Penn Museum are also excited to unveil the Secrets of the Silk Road exhibition in February. This East Coast exclusive exhibition will feature the “most amazingly preserved mummies ever found,” along with other rare never-before-seen artifacts, according to a Penn Museum press release.

Kosty hopes the new hours, programming and exhibitions, coupled with the opening of the South Street Bridge in October, will create the necessary incentive for more visitors — a welcoming prospect given the museum’s declining audience over the past few years due to closure of the bridge and the economic downturn.

“The Penn Museum is one of the only pure anthropology museums in the country,” said College junior Zane Grodman, who works in the Mediterranean and Classics department at the museum. “It is the best kept secret at Penn and it shouldn’t be.”

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