PUPDATES

PUP Treasurer and long-time interpretive veteran Clark Hancock led a team of 6 PUP members to put together a video presentation for the first virtual conference of the National Association for Interpretation in November. Along with Clark, those who participated included Antonieta Jimenez (Board director), Trace Gale (Board director), Mike Mayer (general member), Luis Camargo (director o PUP's partner organization in Colombia), Jon Kohl (executive director), and Sherwood Shankland (board director) summed it all up. Though the presentation was recorded, several were present live for questions and answers.

The presentation is called "Holistic Approaches to Interpretive Planning, Training & Leadership: PUP Experiences Across America." We use Integral Theory and a Triskelle to symbolize the three main perspectives from which we approach these planning and training processes. This theoretical approach is emerging from PUP's strategic planning and may be an indicator of what is to come for PUP.

 The PUP team presents projects from Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras, Colombia, and Chile.

 

PUP is happy to announce recent additions and moves among PUP members. PUP has added three new directors and a new board secretary. See their bios below.

Dr. Michelle Lewis was a technical service member a couple of years ago and now she is back as a board director.

Dr. Trace Gale was formerly our board secretary and has become a board director.

Brian Mullis also moved from technical service member to board director.

Zach Garcia just recently joined up and has replaced Trace as board secretary.

We are thankful to all of them for contributing so much to PUP.

DR. MICHELLE LEWIS

Michelle is the founder and Executive Director of the Peace Garden Project, a non-profit with gardens in New York and North Carolina to address food justice. It looks at intersections of food justice and other justice issues. Her doctorate in ministry from Candler School of Theology focused on food justice and spirituality. Prior to relocating to North Carolina, Michelle pastored a multi-racial/multi-ethnic church in New Rochelle, N.Y. and has pastored churches on the Outer Banks of N.C., in Catskill, New York, and East Berlin, Connecticut.

 Michelle also spent two years as the Youth Worker at Newtown United Methodist Church, and assisted in providing pastoral care to the congregation in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting. Michelle graduated from Yale with a Master of Environmental Science and a Master of Divinity. She is the first person of color to complete the joint degree program in religion and ecology at Yale. She focused on connecting underserved populations to the environment, and the potential role of religion. Michelle formerly served as a mayoral appointee for the New Rochelle Sustainability Commission, and as Chair of the Environmental Justice Committee for the New Haven Branch of the NAACP. She also spent time working at the United Nations in an internship as an advisor to the Federated States of Micronesia on Climate Policy. 

Before Yale, Michelle spent 12 years as a US Park Ranger, working as a Biological Science Technician, Educator, and Law Enforcement Officer. Michelle has produced two award-winning documentaries, Stairway to the Top of Hatteras, for which she was awarded a Communicator Award of Distinction with Boyer Video and Law Enforcement in the National Park Service, that won the NPS Intake Program award for innovation and creativity. Michelle holds a B.A. from Elizabeth City State University, and a M.A. from Regent University.

DR. TRACE GALE

Trace is a U.S. citizen with permanent residency in Chile, where she is a senior researcher and currently serves as the coordinator of the Human-Environmental Interactions Research Group (HEI) within the Center for Investigation in Ecosystems of Patagonia (CIEP), located in the city of Coyhaique. Through an integral lens, her research interests are broadly centered on human-environmental dynamics at the intersection of conservation and development.  Her areas of focus include human values, perceptions, affect, and experiences, with the goal of understanding how these human dynamics converge with regards to natural resource management, community development/wellbeing, and protected areas. She has led teams in the development of visitor use planning methodology, multiple national park and reserve visitor use plans, and ongoing tools for visitor use management and development. She is an affiliate professor with the University Austral of Chile, where she teaches undergraduate courses in parks, outdoor recreation, and tourism, and an affiliate professor with the University of Montana, USA, where she participates in collaborative research and graduate committees. She has designed and taught numerous undergraduate and graduate level courses about authenticity and transformative tourism experiences, and methods for planning and managing visitor experiences in protected places.

BRIAN T. MULLIS

Brian, American, is a destination management, development and marketing specialist. From April 2018–2020, he was the Director of the Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA), in which time the country became globally recognized as a leading sustainable destination. Prior to leading the GTA, he founded and led Sustainable Travel International for 14 years. Leading initiatives and delivering innovative solutions within governmental agencies and multinational and for MSMEs and community leaders in 70+ countries has given Brian a unique ability to foster multi-stakeholder collaboration, bridge communication divides, and generate tangible results at scale. This stems from 25+ years of experience in CEO positions in the private, public and civil sectors and a long track record of generating positive socio-economic and conservation outcomes through tourism. Brian has also held leadership positions on the World Economic Forum Future of Travel and Tourism Council, UN 10YFP Multi-stakeholder Advisory Committee, and the U.S. Department of Commerce Travel and Tourism Advisory Board. Prior to becoming a director, he served as country representative in Guyana and technical service member before that.

Zach garcia - SECRETARY

Zach, American, lives in Evansville, Indiana. As an undergraduate student, he studied Geography, French, and Japanese at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Zach worked as an environmental educator at Madison Children’s Museum, and then he joined the Peace Corps and served as a Food Security/Environmental Specialist in Nepal. He recently graduated from the Yale School of the Environment 2019, where he focused on environmental humanities and sacred spaces. He is currently the Associate Executive Director at Wesselman Woods, the largest urban old-growth forest in the United States. In his free time, he enjoys hiking, cooking, and netflixing.

The Global Planners Network is a plurality of voices with diverse and relevant experience to advocate for effective planning. Member organizations work to advance inclusionary and sustainable planning practice worldwide.

The PUP Global Heritage Consortium has been a member for the past three years. In February 2020 GPN formulated the Abu Dhabi Declaration which sets out GPN’s commitment to planning as an inclusive process that “must underpin any approach to managing rural, urban and regional development.”. The declaration was made public at the UN Habitat's 10th World Urban Forum. PUP is a proud signatory of this declaration.

As PUP grows and diversifies, it has been recruiting new advisors (and directors). Recently it has added three people in order of their prior experience with PUP.

 

Dr. Pham Thi Duyen Anh - Viet Nam

Anh has twenty years’ experience in international development, working with international and Vietnamese NGOs including the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Save the Children, SNV Netherlands Development Organisation, and Centre for Social Research and Development. She has designed and managed development programs to promote community development, disaster preparedness, climate resilience, collaborative natural resource management, and sustainable tourism. Anh has strong interest in promoting sustainable tourism as a tool for local development, especially in heritage sites. She was a national facilitator for a UNESCO’s initiative on Public Use Planning in World Heritage Sites and Biosphere Reserve in Vietnam in 2011 with the Public Use Planning Program that later became the PUP Consortium. Anh completed her PhD in Tourism Management at the University of Queensland, Australia in 2018. She advises international development programs funded by ADB, EU, AusAID.

 

STACIE NICOLE SMITH

Stacie, American, is a Managing Director at the Consensus Building Institute, where she has over 20 years of experience as a mediator, facilitator, coach, trainer, and researcher on a broad range of public issues in the U.S. and internationally. She is also a founding partner of PUP. Stacie’s work includes assessment, facilitation, and mediation of multi-sector community and national stakeholder dialogues, disputes, and collaborations; training and curriculum design for international, national, and local government entities, NGOs, and schools; and research and writing on collaboration on public policy issues. She specializes in facilitating in highly complex and contentious multi-party contexts around substantively challenging technical issues, where identities, values, and interests intertwine. She brings substantive expertise in education, natural resources and environment issues (land use, water, energy), hazard mitigation and recovery, historic and cultural resources, and tribal and indigenous peoples.

 

SUE HODGES

Sue, Australian, is a public historian from Melbourne, Australia, with extensive experience in the fields of history, heritage interpretation, sustainable tourism, capacity building, placemaking and museum and exhibition development. She is currently President of the ICOMOS International Scientific Committee on the Interpretation and Presentation of Cultural Heritage Sites (ICIP), a member of the ICOMOS Advisory Committee and an international expert member of the Foundazione Romualdo Del Bianco. Sue was an invited expert speaker at the 40th and 41st Sessions of the World Heritage Committee, President of Interpretation Australia from 2010 to 2013, and an executive committee member of Australia ICOMOS from 2012-2015. Her business, SHP, operates in Australia and internationally.

They join our other advisors: Duane Fast, Sam Ham, Steve McCool, and Alison Ormsby.

Today PUP issued a statement (English and Spanish) that connects the issues surrounding the international protests sparked by George Floyd’s death and its relationship to heritage interpretation. The organization also endorsed the publication of an essay (English and Spanish) by PUP director Jon Kohl, entitled “Holistic Heritage Management: What Does George Floyd’s Death Site Teach Us about the Nature of Heritage and Its Role in Society?”

Hoy, PUP emitió una declaración (inglés y español) que conecta los problemas relacionados con las protestas internacionales provocadas por la muerte de George Floyd y su relación con la interpretación del patrimonio. La organización también aprobó la publicación de un ensayo (en inglés y español) del director de PUP Jon Kohl, titulado “Gestión integral del patrimonio: ¿Qué nos enseña el sitio de la muerte de George Floyd sobre la naturaleza del patrimonio y su papel en la sociedad?”

PUP would like to congratulate its Mexican members, especially Dr. Antonieta Jiménez, member of PUP's board of directors, and Dr. Manuel Gándara, technical support member, for the newly established Mexican Association of Heritage Interpreters or InterpatMx. Antonieta serves as the new executive director and Manuel is the new president of the board of directors.

This is the first interpretation association in Latin America, finally giving voice to the region among other associations in the world, principally in developed countries. The association was supported also by PUP advisor Dr. Sam Ham who receives a hearty acknowledgment on the home page as well as PUP director Jon Kohl who offers some words of encouragement. The association also received significant support from PUP partner, the National Association for Interpretation in the United States. PUP looks forward to healthy collaboration with InterpatMx in pursuit of the professionalization of this discipline in Latin America. See the website here and a blog in Spanish by Dr. Jiménez introducing the organization here.

For more information go to the website's contact page.

PUP is very pleased to announce a couple of changes within PUP's leadership that occurred at yesterday's board meeting.

1. The board elected Francisco Valenzuela to become the new board chair. Francisco joined the board in May of last year. He only just retired after a long and celebrated career at the USDA Forest Service on 31 December. Part of his retirement planning includes helping to lead PUP into the future. He replaced Executive Director Jon Kohl who served as interim chair since 11 December of last year when the former chair and current board member (serving his second term) Sherwood Shankland finished his term.

2. The board also elected Dr. Alison Ormsby to become an advisor. Alison served as an inaugural board member and finished her term last year along with Shankland and now she transitions to a new role at the organization. She is currently a professor on a variety of conservation related topics (sacred sites, interpretation, community-based conservation) at the University of North Carolina-Asheville.

PUP looks forward to welcoming them both as PUP grows stronger.

As with all volunteer organizations, there is a continual turnover of people. In this email I would like to update you on our latest changes.

 

Francisco Valenzuela, Board Director

I am very excited to present to you all Francisco Valenzuela who is now in the process of retiring from the US Forest Service as a recreation planner and promoter of research and new frameworks for visitor management. Francisco is a big thinker with so much experience in recreation management mostly in the US but also abroad. He is always in search of new and more effective ways of operating. In fact, he was also the first person to review the book by Steve McCool and myself, The Future Has Other Plans, which he did on his own. He has worked out of Washington DC, Albuquerque, New Mexico and calls Golden, Colorado home, which coincidentally also happens to be the city where our book was published and printed.

 

Dr. Jessica Fefer, Vice President

Until 31 July Laura Calandrella was our Vice President. She came on basically to do an analysis and advise us on how to deepen our strategic planning and identify our value proposition, a process that is now underway. We want to heartily thank Laura for stepping in and making this very important contribution.

In her place Dr. Jessica Fefer steps. Jessica started as a general member, then become our Publications and Conferences Coordinator, then our annual report co-editor, and now is Vice President. Coincidental with her ascension to VP, she graduated her PhD program from Clemson University and was hired as an associate professor at Kansas State University where she has begun working alongside PUP members Dr. Ted Cable (retired), Dr. Ryan Sharp (who reviewed Steve and my book, The Future Has Other Plans), and in the same office where PUP member Marisol Mayorga is working on her doctoral research. I first met Jessica during her Master’s research at the University of Maine where she was conducting a Delphi study on the effectiveness of the Recreation Opportunity Spectrum. She will be teaching park planning and interpretation at K-State, two themes closely aligned with PUP.

 

Dr. Trace Gale, Secretary

For more than a year Marina Rothberg has served as our enthusiastic board secretary AND PUP Notes Editor. But now that she prepares to attend Law school in a couple of months and is vacationing in Europe, so she has stepped down. It took two people to replace her. The first is Dr. Trace Gale, an established researcher and practitioner based in Chile. She directs the tourism research unit at the Center for Patagonia Ecotourism Studies and has specialized as of late in public use planning, which fits the PUP Consortium very well. She has also read Kohl and McCool’s The Future Has Other Plans. Fortunately, she already knows from prior work Steve McCool and Francisco Valenzuela. She will fit right in at PUP.

 

Christine Hanna

Christine will fill Marina’s other shoe as PUP Notes editor. Christine is Egyptian and lives in Cairo where she works for the World Food Programme. A couple of years ago she was the communications officer for UNESCO Viet Nam when Pham Huong, who is the culture officer, was a PUP board member. PUP Director Jon Kohl met her on a trip to Hanoi. Given her wide background in communications and development work and her perfect English, she will make the perfect PUP Notes editor.

 

 

Dr. Jeremy Radachowsky and Dr. Bernal Herrera

Both of these PUP advisors have been with PUP for quite a while. In fact, Bernal was at CATIE University when PUP was founded in 2013 and currently works on a condition-based zoning project with PUP in Costa Rica. Jeremy is a fell holistic thinker currently working with the Wildlife Conservation Society. Unfortunately, due to family and work obligations both will be stepping down as advisors. PUP wants to thank them for the work and support they showed PUP. We hope they stay on in some other fashion.

 

We also reported a few weeks ago about Kirsten Clauer, our new webmaster.

El texto es una guía para los gestores culturales y profesionales en museos que están interesados en generar una mejor dinámica de trabajo así como experiencias gozosas y memorables para sus visitantes, a través de la Metodología de la Interpretación.

Como su nombre lo indica la interpretación tiene como propósito ‘traducir’ el lenguaje especializado de los expertos a contenidos y mensajes que todas las personas podemos entender. Es una herramienta de comunicación que nos permite acercar a las personas al patrimonio natural, cultural e histórico. Su objetivo es revelar los significados y valores del patrimonio con el fin de conectarlos con las experiencias previas del público y provocar sentimientos que lo motiven a conservarlo y protegerlo.

Dividido en cuatro secciones, el Manual de diseño y evaluación de la interpretación en los museos narra el proceso de planeación, diseño, evaluación y puesta en marcha de los recorridos desarrollados por los equipos de los museos para sus visitantes. Puede ser descargado en forma gratuita desde el sitio del Museo Laberinto de las Ciencias y las Artes: http://museolaberinto.com/

La edición digital del documento se logró gracias al apoyo de la Secretaría de Cultura, a través de una beca del Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (FONCA) y consigna el trabajo de los autores en tres recintos de la República Mexicana: Laberinto de las Ciencias y las Artes, el Museo Amparo en Puebla y el Museo Nacional de las Culturas del Mundo en la Ciudad de México.

****

The text guides cultural managers and museum professionals interested in providing more joyful and memorable experiences for visitors with the use of interpretation.

As the name indicates, interpretation translates specialized language of experts to content and messages that all people can understand. It is a communication tool that allows us to bring people closer to natural, cultural, and historical heritage. Its objective is to reveal heritage meanings and values to connect them with the public’s prior experiences and provoke feelings that motivate them to conserve and protect it.

Divided into four sections, the Manual for the Design and Evaluation of Interpretation in Museums explains the process of planning, design, evaluation, and implementation of tours developed by museum teams for their visitors. It can be downloaded for free from the Labyrinth Museum of Science and Arts website: http://museolaberinto.com/

The digital edition was achieved thanks to the support of the Ministry of Culture, through a grant from the National Fund for Culture and the Arts.

Para mayor información/For more information: info@pupconsortium.net