Plight at the museums

A new alliance

Many challenges remain for the university museum operators to achieve their goals.

Lack of personnel is a problem, for example, even in established institutions.

Just five full-time employees work at the Sichuan University Museum. And in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology, there are merely four. Fudan University Museum in Shanghai only has two employees, despite Fudan's high status in the Chinese higher education circle.

Speaking about the problem, Cao Hong, deputy director of the Arthur M. Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology, says: "We organize seven to eight exhibitions a year. It has been too exhausting for us. An exhibition needs a lot of academic support."

That also partially explains why many exhibitions hosted by university museums run only for short time frames.

In many cases, college students are recruited as volunteers to design the exhibitions.

Funding is another major hurdle. Unlike publicly-owned museums off campus, which enjoy the financial support of the government, university museums don't benefit from such subsidies.

According to Zhang from the Sichuan University Museum, only 800,000 yuan ($116,000) is allocated to the museum every year by the university to maintain operations. In Nanjing University's case, the financial burden of building a new museum is mainly being borne by a 100 million yuan donation made by a philanthropic entrepreneur.

"The daily operation of the museum cannot be treated as academic research achievements in today's evaluation system," adds Xu. "That is a setback if we want to encourage more impetus among teachers and students to contribute to the museums."

Consequently, the Alliance of University Art Museums of China was initiated during the conference in Hangzhou to combine the efforts of about 30 universities for better development of the whole industry.

The alliance will enable the universities to share resources and promote academic exchanges. The committee of the alliance will have annual meeting, and a relevant academic journal is to be launched. More cooperative exhibitions are also planned through the new platform.

According to Hang Jian, deputy president of the CAA and main convener of the alliance, the organization will not only include universities on the Chinese mainland, but it is also open to counterparts from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

"Infrastructure of university museums has been greatly improved in the past few years," Luo from the National Cultural Heritage Administration says. "However, management and expertise has to catch up. A greater number of professional groups such as this are also needed."

Luo also says that several ministry-level government departments will soon draft a new plan to create a better environment for the museums through policies and fiscal support.

For example, he suggests that some cultural relics, which have been repatriated from other countries or transferred from other institutions, can be allocated to university museums based on their academic strengths.

Artifacts donated by alumni from overseas can also enjoy tax breaks, and the special funds of the State Council, which are used to support the protection of cultural relics, will probably include university museums in the near future.