Category: News

MYSTIC – Mystic Seaport is pleased to announce the William P. Stephens Award has been presented to the distinguished yachtsman and author, John Rousmaniere. Established in 1988, and named after William P. Stephens, long known as the “Dean of American Yachtsmen” and “The Grand Old Man of American Yachting,” the award is given in recognition of a significant and enduring contribution to the history, preservation, progress, understanding, or appreciation of American yachting and boating.

Rousmaniere is an authority on maritime history, especially the history of yachting, and has written 15 books on this subject. His books include The Golden Pastime: A New History of Yachting; histories of the Bermuda Race, the America’s Cup, the New York Yacht Club, and other yacht clubs; biographies of the yacht America and the classic yawl Bolero; and two studies of marine photography focusing on the Rosenfeld Collection. He has written two books about storms, After the Storm and Fastnet, Force 10, the latter about the deadly 1979 race off England in which he sailed. Rousmaniere has also served as yachting editor of The Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History.

He edited a book on yacht design titled Desirable and Undesirable Characteristics of Offshore Yachts and Olin Stephens’s autobiography, All This and Sailing, Too, published by Mystic Seaport. Rousmaniere’s books on sailing safety and seamanship include The Annapolis Book of Seamanship, which just went into its fourth edition. He also contributes articles to Sea History, WoodenBoat, and other magazines.

“We are deeply honored to present this award to John Rousmaniere to recognize his life’s work. There are very few people with even a passing interest in boating or yachting who have not picked up a book written by John,” said Mystic Seaport President Steve White. “His intuitive sense and passion for the subject matter makes sailing come alive on the page because he has lived that life.”

Rousmaniere has served on the Yachting Committee at Mystic Seaport and the Selection Committees of the America’s Cup Hall of Fame and the National Sailing Hall of Fame. He is a member of the Cruising Club of America and the New York Yacht Club, where he chairs the Library Committee.

The award was presented in a ceremony at the New York Yacht Club in New York on Wednesday, January 29.

Previous recipients include: Betsy and B. Hunt Lawrence, 2013; George Moffett, 2011; Henry H. Anderson, Jr., 2009; Joseph Gribbins, 2001; Maynard Bray, 1999; Carleton Mitchell, 1997; Jon Wilson, 1996; Dick and Colleen Wagner, 1995; Waldo Howland, 1994; David “Bud” McIntosh, 1993; John Gardner, 1992; Briggs Cunningham, 1991; Elizabeth Meyer, 1990; William Garden, 1989; and Olin Stephens, 1988.

This fall Mystic Seaport proudly launched its new education website Mystic Seaport for Educators (MSE). Designed by the Museum and a growing community of educators, the dynamic, interactive site brings the treasures and resources of Mystic Seaport out of the Museum and into classrooms and homes across the country.

During the MSE planning phase, Project Manager Krystal Kornegay Rose and Mystic Seaport staff worked with more than 140 educators, parents, and students in a series of 56 co-creation workshops. Their ideas and feedback helped shape the development of MSE. The project represents a shift from delivering information in a static, one-way manner to a more participatory learning model that fosters shared authority, merging the expertise of Museum staff with the standards-based needs of classroom educators.

The site provides primary source material and other resources for teachers to use through the following features:

• Artifact Articles: Brief information and context about an artifact in the collection. Includes questions for deeper thought and other classroom ideas.
• Living Documents: Documents of the past come to life with sound, transcripts, and informational pop-ups.
• Active Maps: Geospatial representations of objects and manuscripts from the Museum’s collection. Feature includes classroom ideas.
• Resource Sets: Thematic “packages” that include samples of each type of website feature (artifact articles, living manuscripts, maps, lectures, and interviews) all connected by a central theme.
• Lectures and Scholar Interviews: Audio recordings of popular lectures at the Frank C. Munson Institute of American Maritime Studies at Mystic Seaport, as well as MSE teacher-scholar interviews.

Creating MSE Content

The content featured on the website is created through the MSE Resource Creation Professional Development Program, an innovative project that uses the expertise of educators from public and private schools as well as homeschool families. Each summer up to 10 MSE Fellows work with Mystic Seaport staff to create content for the website. While taking part in this development program Fellows are required to: attend orientation programs that include collections tours, oral history workshops, film and video workshops, research workshops and a resource creation workshop; choose what to research from a pre-compiled list of artifacts and documents; research and study items in the Museum’s collection, working closely with curators and other staff, to create MSE website features and an MSE Educator Profile; work with Mystic Seaport staff to create content and features, following detailed instructions for each website feature (staff support is readily available); and attend one Museum field trip. Upon editing and approval by Museum staff, the teacher’s website features and educator profile are published. All MSE content that is created continues to be developed by educators and Museum staff and fresh content will be added regularly.

MSE Fellows are chosen through a competitive application process distributed to school networks in early spring. Recent content creators include Sally Motycka, Stonington High School; Emily Schimelman, Hamden Hall Country Day School; Laurie Hartnett, Mystic Middle School; Kathleen Neumann, The Morgan School; Peter Emanuel, The Williams School; Macy Kleinfelder, The Williams School; Carol Ambrosch, Ledyard Center School; Terry Samokar, Ledyard Center School; Henry Kydd, East Lyme High School; Jason Hine, Mystic Seaport staff; Thea Hudson, Colby College & East Lyme High School (student); Vera Cecelski, Mystic Seaport intern and Williams-Mystic alumni; and Paul Goodwin, professor emeritus of History at the University of Connecticut and Mystic Seaport volunteer.

The next phase of the MSE project is focused on gathering user feedback and making subsequent improvements to the site, as well as promoting the site through monthly professional development programs. Focus group sessions are planned for December, led by the project’s evaluator, Dr. John Fraser of New Knowledge, and versions 2.0 and 3.0 are in the works.

Congratulations are in order for James T. Carlton, professor of marine sciences and director of the Williams-Mystic Maritime Studies Program at Mystic Seaport, who has been named the 2013 recipient of the California Academy of Sciences Fellows’ Medal. Carlton was awarded the Academy’s highest honor during the Fellowship’s October meeting.

Based in San Francisco, the California Academy of Sciences is a world-class scientific and cultural institution that is committed to leading-edge research and educational outreach. According to a press release, the Academy awards the Fellows’ Medal to “especially prominent scientists who have made outstanding contributions to their specific scientific fields.” Medalists are nominated each year by the Academy Fellows and confirmed by the Board of Trustees.

“I was very honored and surprised to receive the Fellows’ Medal from the California Academy of Sciences, one of the country’s leading scientific institutions. I am deeply humbled to be in the company of the other scientists who have been Medalists,” said Carlton.

Carlton has directed the Williams-Mystic Program since 1989 and is a professor of Marine Ecology. His research focuses on the environmental history of coastal marine ecosystems, including invasions of non-native species and modern-day extinctions in the world’s oceans. His research sites include the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, the Hawaiian Islands, Argentina, and South Africa. He is the only scientist to receive the Interagency Recognition Award from the U.S. Federal Government for his national and international work to reduce the impacts of exotic species invasions in the sea. Carlton is currently Lead Principal Investigator on a National Science Foundation-funded study on the marine life being transported across the Pacific Ocean by the marine debris generated by the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 2011.

In addition to being a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences, Carlton is founding Editor-in-Chief of the journal Biological Invasions, a Pew Fellow for Marine Conservation, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1995, he was named an “Ocean Hero” by the Smithsonian Institution. Carlton received his undergraduate degree in paleontology from the University of California, Berkeley; his Ph.D. in ecology from the University of California, Davis; and did his postdoctoral work at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

MYSTIC —The New England Museum Association (NEMA) has elected Susan Funk, executive vice president of Mystic Seaport, as president of its board of directors. The election was held at the organization’s 2013 Annual Meeting on November 15 as part of the group’s 95th annual conference in Newport, Rhode Island.

“We’re very excited to have Susan on board,” said NEMA Executive Director Dan Yaeger. “Her leadership and commitment to the organization will help take us to the next level of success in serving the museum field.”

Funk oversees and coordinates the activities of the Museum’s Education, Exhibitions, Maritime Studies, Curatorial, Watercraft, Human Resources, and Visitor Services departments. She is responsible for operational and strategic planning, program evaluation, and participation in trustee committees, and management of all Museum functions associated with the Mystic Seaport visitor experience. Funk coordinated Mystic Seaport’s successful accreditation self-study for the Association of American Museums (AAM) in 2004-2005. She is active in the field serving on the NEMA board and regularly serving as an AAM Museum Assessment Program reviewer and accreditation site committees. In July 2005 she participated in the Getty Institute’s prestigious Museum Leadership Institute.

“Susan’s new role with NEMA validates her leadership in the field, and underscores how fortunate Mystic Seaport is to have had her on the staff all these years,” said Steve White, president of Mystic Seaport.

Funk most recently joined the Museum in 1994. In total, she has been employed at Mystic Seaport for 25 years.

Funk was elected unanimously by more than 400 NEMA members in attendance. She is eligible to serve two one-year terms as president under the organization’s bylaws.

About the New England Museum Association

For 95 years, the New England Museum Association has been the region’s only organization serving museums of all sizes and the people who work for and with them. NEMA’s mission is to strengthen museums in the region through research, professional development, thought leadership, advocacy, and initiatives that build the social capital of museums within their communities. To achieve this mission, NEMA fosters communication and ethical conduct, promotes excellence in museum operations, and encourages support for the museum field. Programs include an annual conference which attracts more than 900 museum professionals, a series of workshops, a series of leadership events, and special projects such as the Museum Diversity Initiative, which seeks to align museums with an increasingly multicultural society.

POMFRET, CONN.  – The Association for the Study of Connecticut History (ASCH) has honored “The Rockets’ Red Glare: The War of 1812 and Connecticut” with two awards. The Bruce Fraser Award, recognizing the finest public history presentation in the state in 2012, was presented to the Lyman Allyn Art Museum, where the exhibition was displayed from July 2012 through January 2013. The Betty M. Linsley Award, recognizing the best work on Connecticut history published by a historical society in 2012, was presented to the New London County Historical Society for the companion book to the exhibit, of which Glenn Gordinier, the Robert G. Albion Historian at Mystic Seaport, was the primary author.

“The Rockets’ Red Glare” was created by a partnership of the New London County Historical Society with Mystic Seaport, the Stonington Historical Society, the New London Maritime Society, and the Lyman Allyn Art Museum to commemorate the bicentennial of the beginning of the War of 1812. The organizations worked together in creating the exhibition, the book, and a website. Fred Calabretta, curator of collections at Mystic Seaport, was the guest curator for the exhibit, and Mystic Seaport Exhibit Designer Jeff Crewe was the exhibit’s designer. The exhibition showcased historical objects from each of the partners’ collections. The 12’ x 18’ American flag that flew over Stonington during the attack by the British navy in 1814, a treasured artifact in the Stonington Historical Society collection, was a highlight of the exhibition.

In presenting the Bruce Fraser Award, ASCH Chairman Peter Hinks commented on the exemplary nature of the exhibit, saying, “Working with a limited but exciting pool of documents and artifacts that included the famous Stonington Battle flag from 1814, the designers smartly deployed all to stage a rich narrative of a Connecticut assailed and transformed by the era’s naval, commercial and political frays.”

Awarding the Linsley prize, Hinks praised Gordinier’s expert guidance as well as the insight of numerous scholars. Speaking of the project, he remarked that the collaboration made it possible: “Key to the exhibition’s merit is its modeling of how a consortium of some of the state’s numerous local historical societies can combine their resources, knowledge, and energies to serve the people of the state through commendable public history.”

The project also received a Leadership in History Award from the American Association for State and Local History at their annual fall meeting in September.

The book and exhibition were supported by grants from Connecticut Humanities, the Coby Foundation, and the Edgard and Geraldine Feder Foundation. Creating the website was funded through a grant from the Community Foundation of Eastern Connecticut.